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^» ^y^ f^.'of^, ^v';:c*-y /tf^,.

I

\ \v;

VAL OF PARADISE

TW.: N..\V YORK

PU3;JC LIBRARY

T^ L

VAL HANNON DRIFTED DOWN ACROSS THE 8UNCI1-
GBASS LEVELS ON THE GREAT RED KING Page 31

VAL OF PARADISE

VINGIE E. ROE

"THAXOK OW LOBT VALUtT, ETC.

NEW YORK

DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY

1931

...--,

i v*

993679A

J

COTTBIOBT, 1921

Bv DODD, MSAD ASD COMPANT, Iiro.

Cli €tKbm A

BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAH WAV NKW JERSEY

CONTENTS

I
II

m

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

XV

XVI

XVII

xvni

XIX

John Hannon's Firmament •

High Play

The Friends op Paradise

The Cross in the Wilderness

'*Why Don't You Run Redstar!"

The Cry op A Desert Owl

The Foltrth at Santa Leandra

A Rustler's Hand

The Light of Dawnin« Fires

Val Calls

The hvttE OF THE Padre's Garden
The Crt in the Blind Trail Hills
Deep Waters ....
TuE Stirrino Talk .
On the Bui of IVIesa Grande .
The Vixen's Heart .
BmsTON Does Some Thinking
The Face in the Doorway
The Black Rustler Bides
Greater Love Hath No Mam .
Home to the Fields of Paradise

PAOB

1

9

27

35

48

58

71

85

102

114

127

144

147

158

168

183

190

199

210

22dr

230

\

VAL OF PABADISE

VAL OF PARADISE

CHAPTER I

JOHN HANNON'S firmament

PABADISE! What words shall one choose
to tell of it and those who made it — of its
beauty, its strength and its arrogance?

In a land where distance hazed the southern
skyline, where tawny buttes and mesas stood ma-
jestically against the blue, where bunch-grass ley-
els swept toward the illimitable west and the
Blind Trail Hills rose stark and forbidding upon
the east, it lay like the heart of peace itself, smiling
in the sun, green with its wide alfalfa fields beneath
its living waters. Tall cottonwoods weaved and
whispered in the little winds that blew always from
the south and a high-topped palm or two stood like
sentinels to guard its gates. Where Bluewater, the
great sweet spring that boiled eternally in its stone-
flagged patio, ran out beneath the trees, there pur-
ple iris grew beside the trickle, and water hya-
cinth.

Worn, old-fashioned chairs and benches stood
hospitably on the clean-swept earth where the pop-
lars made their shaking shade, and hammocks, gay
irith fringe swuing in the little breezes.

rf rf «« ^ ^ A

Ui_

S iVAL OF PABADISB

And; half circling this enchanting spot upon the
left, there stood the ranch-house itself.

How far back none knew, its adobe blocks had
been set one upon another to form its monstrous
walls. All traces of their distinction had been long
since lost, smoothed and blended by the erosion of
the elements.

The house was irregular, full of great rooms and
passage-ways and sudden turnings, of mysterious
and unexpected nooks and comers. In the centre
of the half-circlel which it formed around the spring
and the cottonwoods, two great doors opened in-
ward, taking the stranger abruptly into a room so
huge — so high, so wide, so deep— that he invariably
caught his breath, and if he were a man of parts
with sensibilities, he stood in amaze before its
beauties.

Its hard earth floor was covered to every comer
with Indian rugs in staring black-and-white, every
one of which in its beautiful design, its size, its
thickness, was worth a pocket full of gold. On its
walls yet other rugs and blankets were stretched
between the long, deep rifts that answered for win-
dows, but these were bright with colour — ^flaming
reds and golds and the sharp clear contrast of the
blacks that only the Indian weavers know so well
how to use. Here and there among these striking
panels there hung a picture or two— and again the
stranger stared, for one was the Mona Lisa with
her ever entrancing smile, and one was Psyche at
Spring in the exquisite lights and tints of April,

^ «. '' >.«.».

JOHN HANNON'S FIRMAMENT 3

while yet one other web that ondying joy to those
who love horseflesh, Bosa Bonheor's Horse Fair,
full four feet long.

In the space and distances of this great room
were all the things that make for human comfort
and content. Tables with covers of wonderful
hand-work etood here and there with books upon
them, and lamps, while worn chairs with deep cush-
ions invited everywhere.

There were couches against the walls, and in one
comer where the light fell softly from the west
through the fine-leaved vine outside the window, a
piano, so old that its once milk-white keys were yel-
low as an old dog's tooth, lifted its harp-shaped top
majesticaUy against the piece of ancient tapestry
that draped the wall behind. A narrow bench, en-
tirely covered ynth minute carvings, black with age
and polished by the wear of many a whispering
gown, stood meekly before it, as if glad to serve in
its lowly way the once grand instrument.

Here in the dusk a woman came sometimes, feel-
ing with outstretched hands for the things she
could not see, and sliding softly on the ancient
bench, played tinkling tunes of a long past day. A
sweet, fair woman she was, frail and delicate of out-
line and demeanour, with patient lines in her clear
face and with the light of a splendid soul shining
in her darkness.

For twenty years she had been like a prisoner in
this fortress, but guarded by so many loving hearts,
.watched by so many keen eyes, served by so many

'4 yAL OF PABADISB

eager hands, that she was in reality a qneen. !^d
here, often, when she played her nameless tnnes a
man came to find her, to sit and listen and to watch
her face with snch a heart-ache on his features that
Tragedy stalked through the shadowed room.

This was John Hannon, the boss of the rancho,
the greatest one-man power in the country of the
mesas, hated by his far neighbours for his fences
and his fields, and his methods, feared by his ene-
mies, and a shining mark for that sharp gentry of
the Border whose raids and crimes were a load on
the hearts of all the ranchers within striking dis-
tance of the line. And the slim blind woman was his
wife, Belle, the only woman-creature he had ever
loved in his life save one, and whose affliction had
darkened the windows of his soul with bitter re-
bellion.

Branching from this central room a labyrinth of
rooms stretched to right and left, the dining-room
toward the north, flanked by the kitchen and store-
rooms, the many smaller rooms occupied by the
Mexican and Indian women who did all the work
of the big house. To the left and front circled
the private apartments of the boss and his
family.

Out behind, toward the north, there lay the great
bams and corrals, the sheds and stacks and pad-
docks that bespoke huge herds.

John Hannon's land stretched for many a mile,
according to his strength to hold it, and cattle
grazed on the sweet bunch grass as far as the eye

JOHN HANNON'S FIRMAMENT 5

could see. Fonr living springs among the mesas,
more precions than gold in that half desert land,
were his by right of long possession and might of
protection. His cattle drank from their crystal
flow and all others were jealously kept away. Not
that many strays found their way so far across his
ranges, for neighbours were scattered sparsely in
the wide country.

Cowboys, vaqueros, slept in the long bunk-house
that stood to the right of the ranch-house
and the bams, followed the rattling chuck-wagons,
rode the range and were John Hannon's to a man,
for this big, heavy ranchero was of a personality
that drew men to him strongly, or repelled them as
strongly. Those who came to work for him and felt
the latter side of him, soon departed, for he was
keen as a hawk and knew his own immediately. His
hand was open to his friends, closed and heavy to
his enemies. To that which opposed him he was
iron, steel, cold and hard as granite. His dark eyes
were changeable, soft as shadows when he looked
upon his wife, keen and bright as flame when his
swift anger was aroused.

And that was not so rare a thing, this rousing of
his wrath, for there were those who resented his
broad fields of alfalfa that ran toward the south,
who called him a "nester," that title of oppro-
brium — the cattlemen, who looked with suspicion
and desire upon the pride of John Hannon's heart,
namely the wondrous horses that ran inside his
fences.

6 iVAL OF PABADISE

f

'Ah I Those horses I How shall one describe
them?

They were red as heart's blood and every whit as
vital. In every shade, from the pale flame-red of
the young matched racers, Firebrand and The
Flame, with their cream-white manes and tails,
through the darker blood-bay tones of old Hotfoot,
their mother, of Redcloud, of Dawnlight the wild
young mare with her evil heart, of Lightning the
beautiful, they ranged to the deep and splendid
colour of Bedstar, the king.

If the others were amazing in their beauty and
perfection, Bedstar was beyond comparison. And
he was not kin to the Bed Brood, since he was an
alien, brought from none knew what distant land
save John Hannon himself who had ridden him
home one day in spring some four years back, after
a long and silent absence.

But though there were many red horses on the
bunch-grass levels then, though the stranger was
worn and lean with long, quick travel, though dust
and sweat were caked upon him and his eyes were
hollow with fatigue, yet from that first moment of
his appearance in the wide ranch yard, he was the
king.

Ah, yes, he was the king. And he had always
been ; for beside his r^al beauty, the heart of a king
beat in his broad breast, a kingly spirit looked out
of his deep, intelligent eyes, and the speed of noth-
ing less than an equine king was in his long straight
legs.

JOHN HANNON'S FIRMAMENT 7

The boss had swung stiffly from him that spring
twilight and laid upon his neck a hand that was
eloquent of pride.

" Give him th' best th* ranch's got," he said to
Briston the foreman, " now an' always."

** Where on earth d'you get him?" asked the
other wonderingly, but the rancher turned wearily
away toward the comfort of his house.

** So fur from here that you wouldn't know,
Tom," he said, ^^ and," he added as an afterthought,
" his price has left me nearly busted."

So Redstar came to Paradise, and it was Paradise
to him in all truth, for he had the run of all the
fresh green fields, the open stretches where the
bunch grass grew when the riders were about, a
private paddock all his own, and none but the mas-
ter ever backed him, until — until Val Hannon grew
up sufficiently to look her daddy in the eye with
her two velvet orbs and demand the king to ride.

'And Val Hannon ranked above the horses if such
a thing were possible — perhaps because her mother
loved her with an idolatry that lit up her darkness.
If Belle Hannon had loved an Apache Indian he
would have been precious to her husband for that
reason.

But there was reason in plenty for the boss to
rank his daughter first, all the reason a man might
heed wrapped in the slim young form of her, for if
the Bed Brood strained comparison, Val Hannon
Ji^gared it.

^Hien she came in from the open levels and tossed

B yAL OF PARADISE

her hat toward the nearest comer, her kerchief
after it, she was a sight to dwarf the beauty of all
Paradise and its possessions, for she was beauty
incarnate, the heart and soul and pulse of it. She
was tall and strong and slender, straight as a lance
in rest and pliant as a willow. Her face was oval,
with a well-set chin above her pretty throat, and
the sunsets of the mesas shone through her soft
dark skin. Her hair was black and running with
loose waves, like a gentle sea in the sun, and her
eyes were like her father's, dark and swiftly change-
able. They were long eyes, slumbrous at times and
full of tenderness for every living creature, but th^
could widen and flash upon occasion.

She was bom to the open as the winds to the
levels, the white clouds to the sky. Hour by hour
she rode in the great spaces of the plains, drowsed
beneath the shadow of some weathered shaft of the
red stone of the region, and dreamed the dreams of
girlhood.

And Val on Bedstar was the prize, the crown of
Paradise, the imperial sovereign before whom the
whole ranch bowed in adoration — ^but the sweetest^
kindest, simplest ruler that ever sat a throne.

CHAPTER II

HIGH PLAY

ON a warm sweet day in early snmmer the
town of Santa Leandra drowsed beneath its
trees, half asleep and utterly at peace.

Hardly a breath of breeze stirred the huge elms
and the cottonwoods which shaded its one street
and the crooked, pretty lanes and byways that held
its ancient houses. Adobe for the most part, these
old structures might hold a thousand secrets with
their nameless passage-ways, their dusky rooms,
their seclusion.

A stream of living water, known for three hun-
dred miles each way, trickled sluggishly beside the
straggling street, and to the south and west
stretched out the country of the mesas. To the east
and north, flanking all the land indeed, there rose
and circled the illimitable mystery of the Blind
.Trail HiUs.

Gardens flourished and flowers grew in profu-
fiion, and children shouted and played in the shady
.ways.

Santa Leandra was an ancient dame among
towns. Three generations back she had sent out
her wagons with their freight of gold, brought them
back laden with supplies for the two stores. Today
the wagons still creaked over the many miles of

9

10 VAL OP PABADISB

bnnchi-grass plain that lay between her and the
railroad — the railroad that would never come
nearer — and they still carried a slender freight of
gold; still brought back supplies. For Santa Lean-
dra, though seemingly of the past, was very much
of the present.

On this particular day the life of the one street
was gathered at the rack before Hunnewell's store
where a bunch of horses were tied. They were good
horses, all — lean, hard-ridden chaps, but in the pink
of fitness, and most of them belonged in the place.
The men who lived in this wild land were more than
half horse, and wherever one was, there would his
mount be also.

For a game was running at HunnewelFs and had
run since the night before. One of those horses at
the rack belonged to Brideman who rode alone, and
when he struck town there was always play worth
while at Hunnewell's. Brideman carried gold
always, and though that was no rare thing, it was
forever worth the taking.

But it took a good one to take it from Brideman
*in all truth — usually Corey who lived in the big
stone house at the north end of the street, or San-
chez who came in from the outskirts.

Both of these were at the table now, along with
Tait and Hunnewell himself and several cowboys
in chaps and sombreros, with their six-shooters
hanging low at their lean hips. For that matter
every man in the place carried a gun, after the cus-
tom of the region. Tait, there, was known in a

HIGH PLAY 11

modeet way for his clever trigger finger, and Corey
had killed more than one man in the long life that
^had silvered his thick ha^ir and given him the
saintly look of a Daniel. Bnt Corey could play, and
it was worth a man's time to watch his benignant
face when he held three aces and a pair of queens
and never a shadow flecked across it. Also it was
of the same mild impassiveness when he bluffed out
the pot on deuces. But Brideman, big, bearded,
blond and full of laughter, was in high fettle this
day and was cleaning up on all of them. He had
played for sixteen hours straight on end and was
fresh as at the beginning, keen as a racer. His blue
eyes, set under their beetling brows, were sparkling
like harbour lights, and he struck the dirty, canvas-
covered table with a mighty fist from time to time
as he raked in the gold before him.

At Hunnewell's store the bar, as being of first
import, came first on the left as one entered the
place. Beyond there ran the counter over which
the wives of Santa Leandra bought their flour and
sugar, their calico and ginghams by the yard. To
the right there stood several tables like the one at
which the men were playing, for sometimes the
town was packed full of strange horses and grati-
fying crowds played at Hunnewell's.

Today, as the men steadily lost to Brideman, a
shadow darkened the door and a girl stood there.
8he leaned gracefully against the lintel and smiled,
her little head tilted sidewise like a bird's, her black
eyes roving over every face there with a bold bright

12 VAL OF PARADISE

glance. She was clad in gay garments of scarlet
and blacky with a sash of striped silk that hnng to
her knee at the left, after it had most sancily bonnd
her slender waist in a wide, tight girdle. These
were her best clothes, daringly donned because
there were strange men in town, and she went
boldly to the store for a bagatelle of some sort or
other.

At the sound of her light foot at the sill the play-
ers looked up— Brideman with a leer and a laugh
and a pointed compliment, the cowboys with that
lively interest which all their ilk feel in women-
kind, but Paul Sanchez with a black scowl, for she
was his daughter.

" Lolo," he said sharply, " go home — pronto."

But she only leaned more comfortably against
the doorpost and smiled at the men.

^^Lolo likes company," said Brideman, boister-
ously, **and why shouldn't she, shut in this for-
saken town? Tell me that. Come watch us play,
little one,'* he added, turning his great face toward
the door.

But Sanchez was on his feet, his dark face flam-
ing. He lifted an imperious finger and pointed
north, and the girl, with a last sidewise glance and
a pout, slipped gracefully off the step and disap-
peared.

Sanchez sat down again, picked up his cards and
called for a draw coolly, but there was fire in his
black eyes. That invitation of the big man to the
girl to " come and watch the play " given directly

HIGH PLAY 13

against his command had roused him to the depths,
like all his race the Mexican was of quick angers
and resentments.

And now, as if he lost command of his usually
sane judgment, he lost the last of his gold and rose
with a bow, his cards thrown on the table.

" Your pleasure, gentlemen," he said. " Drink
with me, if Hunnewell will trust me."

Hunnewell behind his worn old bar trusted any
one. Morjeover he knew that Sanchez was only
temporarily broke. So the players left the table
with much noise of scraping chairs and jingling
spurs and lined up for the fiery refreshment which
would have floored a stranger.

And Lolo, swinging down the little street beneath
the elms and cottonwoods, her slim brown hands on
her narrow hips, her black head high with offended
dignity, stopped short to stare with wide eyes to
where the open road led in from the sage-brush
plain.

A great dust was on the level, for many horses
ran there, fleet horses, she knew, for they poked
their dark noses ahead of the dust, even though the
wind, blowing with a keen freshness, was behind
them. The girl lifted her hands instinctiYely and set
the bunch of scarlet flowers more jauntily behind
her little ear, smoothed the black hair that lay like
shining satin above her beautiful brow. Lolo San-
chez was lovely to look upon and knew it perfectly.

More men were coming into Santa Leandra —
more excitement, more play at Hunnewell's, more

14 VAL OF PARADISE

drinking, and, incidentally, more mascnline eyes to
behold her in her finery.

" Little hnssy," called a woman from a doorway,
her brood of babies at her skirts, ^^ stand an'
watch ! Bold — bold — an' don't care a rap ! "

Lolo whirled npon her like a fury, black eyes snd*
denly flaming.

*^ Hold yonr tongue, you Marta Winne," she said,
^^ if I had your hair and teeth I'd hide behind mod-
esty, too."

The woman, flushing, flung indoors and drew her
flock after. The shot had gone home truly, for the
wisp of hair wound to a tight knob the size of an
egg on her round pate was pale straw colour, and
she was painfully snaggle-toothed.

Lolo turned back to watch the oncoming cloud of
dust with its potentialities. It came with an in-
creasing sound of thunder, with the rattle and
creak of chain and saddle, and presently a band of
men rode into the end of the sleepy street and
pounded down its length toward Hunnewell's.

They were lean brown chaps to a man, they rode
like centaurs, and every man-jack of them carried
two guns swinging at his hips. Their garments
were good and showed a certain vanity of adorn-
ment, such as an ostentation of spotted belts and
riding cuffs. But the thing about them that took
the eye of every beholder in that land was their
horses.

Grand horses they were, wild, ramping, mettle-
some creatures all big, all hard as nails from long

HIGH PLAY 16

and streniioiiB use^ and the one that raced aheftd
was more beautiful than all of them.

And if the horse shone up in sharp contrast
among those behind him, not less did his rider also.

This was a young man, not over seven and
twenty, tall, lean as a hound, the broad shoulders
beneath his flannel shirt slipping with muscle, the
long hands on his pommel slender as a woman's
and as fine-grained, his handsome blue eyes in odd
contrast to the darkness of his hair and the smooth
dark tan of his cheeks.

There were bad faces in that bunch behind him,
hard faces and sinister ones, but this man's face
W|U9 the epitome of joyous recklessness. As he thun-
dered down the street of Santa Leandra with his
men behind him, he took off his hat and rode bare-
headed and smiling, his keen eyes seeing every-
thing in sight, even the half -hidden old door 1t)e-
^eath a lattice, the hound pup that scratched fran-
tically to get under a sill, and the fact that every
house had huge, crude locks, as if the inmates
trusted neither neighbour nor friend. Neither did
he fail to see the girl, standing wide-eyed in her fin-
ery beside the way as he pounded down to stop with
a rattle and slide before the rack at Hunnewell's.

" Too many horses, boys," he said in a voice as
rich as a harp, ** tie over there," and he drew his
mount aside. This horse was not like the rest.
»Eyery line in him bespoke an alien breed, a better
blcibd. It looked out of his quick, intelligent eyes,
stood forth in the delicacy of his nostrils, the small-

16 VAL OP PABADISE

ness of his sharp ears, the height and shape of his
withers, the length and strength of his slim legs.

The man tied him securely, but with a sliding
knot whose loose end, responsive to a jerk, would
loose the whole. As the master turned to leave, the
beautiful creature, drawing a long breath, leaned
affectionately toward him and rubbed its cheek
against his arm.

The group of newcomers, falling in close together
as if from habit, crossed the street to the store,
mounted the steps with a clatter of spurs and en-
tered. The leader stood first inside the door and
looked around with the sparkling smile that lighted
his face as with an inner flame. The men at the
table looked up, and though they knew perfectly
well, had known for ten minutes, of their arrival,
they showed no surprise. Every face there was
placid, shallow with an alert indifference. Bride-
man alone looked keenly over the crowd with an
appraising glance.

^^ Hello, boys,'' said the tall young chap, setting
the broad black hat back upon his head at an angle^
" room for some more? "

^^ Always room for more," said the genial Hunne-
well, " what'U you have? "

"Molten hell for these," said the other airily
with a wave of his slim hand toward those behind
him, ** water for me. Gentlemen," he included the
players at the table, who b^an to rise at the time-
honoured invitation.

" Wh*— what did you say, stranger? " asked Hun-

HIGH PLAY 17

newdl, a grin b^inning to spread on his florid
face.

But the young man turned and looked at him,
and all the smile, all the sparkle, was gone sud-
denly from his face.

**I said * water', Hunnewdl," he said evenly,
"just plain, cold, ordinary water. Suits my par-
ticular type of beauty better. Keeps my complec-
tion smooth."

" Sure," said Hunuewell gracefully and gravely,
'* I agree with you. Ain't nothin' better," and he
deftly served up the drinks and lazily wiped the
worn old bar where a thousand passing elbows had
left their mark in polish.

" Play? " asked Hunnewell.

" If we may."

There was a smoothness of tongue, a precision of
speech about this dusty rider of the bunch grass,
that struck the listeners and though they could not
have defined it, it set the man somewhat apart. He
seemed different from all in that big bare room
when he drew up and sat in the game which their
coming had disrupted.

Hunnewell bustled about and drew forth a sec-
ond table, round, of goodly size, canvas covered, a
third to match it, and soon there was the slap of
cards, the occasional word, the sound of silver, the
dull clink of soft raw gold to break the silence of
the game.

Sanchez, out of it, drew up a chair and sat smok-
ing and watching as if he had not but now lost the

18 VAL OP PARADISE

last motlqr bag of dust, dollars and pesos he pos-

^ WBsed in the world. A game was a game and he

^^^was a bom gambler, feeling its lure vicariously.

-' At the table where Brideman played the stranger

had taken seat naturally, as if one sti^ong force

drew another. As the cut for deal went round these

two men looked at each other and a keen observer

would have sensed a measuring, an appraising, as

if each tested the other's mettle. Corey had joined

the second table and Hunnewell the third, while

the rest of the original players were about evenly

distributed.

The day was still young, and interest leaped up
anew in thdr faces. Some of these had dropped
^ out, slept an hour or two and come back to face
Brideman again, but Brideman had not slept Now
his blue eyes under their shaggy brows shone with
a keener brilliance. He sensed something more to
his liking, a worthier foe than these whom he knew
80 well. The piles of silver coins and gold dust
before him were insulting in their size, a plain
statement of inferior conflict, though neither Tait
nor Corey nor Sanchez need take a back seat any-
where on that Border.

Brideman was rich for the day. Whether or not
he would be tomorrow was another matter. How-
ever, he had but to ride away into the distances
which swallowed and disgorged him at fitful times,
to come back again laden to his ears with gold.

And many odd things this man had put up at
times when luck went against him— once a wonder-

HIGH PLAY 19

f ol ring of heavy carven gold which^ upon pressure,
shot forth a minute blade.

Brideman had said the steel was poisoned and
the gamblers had laughed. Whereupon he had
leaned suddenly and touched the cat stretched
among the barrels in the warmth of the fire, for it
was winter time. The thing was effective, for the
creature died promptly and with scarce a quiver.
. Sanchez had won the ring, but Brideman had
forced him to continue the play for twenty hours,
until he won it back.

Again, he had staked the beautiful ivory hand of
a sacred statue, got from none knew what sacked
Mission of the Border, silent sign of the man's de-
pravity. Sanchez had won that, too, and, play as
he would, Brideman had never been able to win it
back.

So now today he measured his new ground and
gathered the motley wealth before him into com-
pact piles.

But Hunnewell's was due that day to see such
high play as it had not seen for years, and it was
due to see the breaking of Brideman, a thing which
it had never seen.

For it was not long before every man at the table
— and at the one adjoining, through subtle glances
and keenly cocked ears — ^knew that Brideman had
met his match, his real match, not a spurting victor
who won and lost again, such as Corey and San-
chez, but a man who played to him steadily and be-
gan to win.

**

20 VAL OP PABADISE

At first it was with huge delight and mounting
merriment that he shoved over this and that small
heap of gold and silver. He roared in his great
voice and struck the table with his hairy fists and
constantly delayed the game to call for drinks,
which Hunnewell must stop to serve.

'^Playin' to Brideman! By jinks! A kid like
you ! '' he said, ^^ an' winnin' ! Ain't it amazin' !
Come on, young-un. I played when you was on
your mammy's lap— come agin ! " and he shook his
leonine head and refused to draw, holding his hand
cupped in his broad palm and grinning across at
the stranger.

^^ Old methods, Brideman," said the other, smil-
ing, ^^ we young ones sometimes teach you old dogs
new tricks. I raise you."

^^Darn!" said Brideman, who was notoriously
mild in his speech among a hard-swearing gentry,
as he lost again.

So the day drifted by with sweet winds in from
the plain and a high sun that sailed in a cloudless
sky, and the stacks of coin before Brideman dwin-
dled, to grow at the stranger's elbow.

" Maybe you're tired," said the young man once,
halting a moment, ^^ would you like to rest and be-
gin again later? "

" Quit? Brideman a quitter? Deal them cards! ^^

And for once the laughter had subsided in the
giant's throat. His sparkling blue eyes were still
bright, but red rims had come about them as he
was showing his liquor and his strain.

HIGH PLAY 21

The play at the other tables had dwindled as in-
terest grew in the big game, and finally ceased alto-
gether as the men rose and stood round in a circle,
watching this cool blue-eyed stranger pare Bride-
man down with steady persistency.

Sanchez and Corey and Tait leaned near in
breathless intensity and from time to time some one
drew a long breath, for none among them had ever
se^i the bully beaten down to his limit so, seen
him recognize a master hand as he plainly did now
by the grimness of his face, the lack of his eternal
laughter. It was the first time they had ever known
him to play in silence.

At one o'clock Brideman pushed over with a
wavering hand the last motley heap of gold before
him and called for two cards. He had scarcely
moved from his chair for twenty-two hours. This
was the last deal and it seemed impossible that the
run of luck could or would change, and those in the
circle drew in closer. So interested were they that
none had seen Lolo Sanchez as she stood for a long
time in the door, watching the face of the man oppo-
site Brideman, whose back was toward her.

The girl was a fiower, a light in the shadow, a
laugh in the windy sun, enough to make a man for-
get many things — had made more than one forget
the things he should have remembered. But she
was a wanton, a thief of love and a little pirate,
taking all and giving little — a laugh, a kiss, a prom-
ise, and gone like thistle floss upon the wind. Many
had tried to hold her and failed.

22 VAL OP PARADISE

Her father watched her with deep anger and con-
sidered her a danger and a liability.

But Lolo was brave^ whatever else she was, and
played her tricks under his eyes without fear.
Now, as she watched the lean^ dark face of the
stranger with its big blue eyes her own were deep
and wide with a new expression^ — ^a look of won-
der, of newness, of keen intensity.

She scanned its every feature, the tumbled dark
hair above the white brow where the sweatband left
its mark, the straight nose, the heavy eyebrows and
lashes that so strangely shadowed the light of the
eyes, the handsome mouth with the dimples at the
up-turned corners.^ She brazenly looked over the
lean, strong figure from the broad shoulders down
to the slender waist, and found the man good in all
the slim glory of his youth and his prime.

And as this man called Brideman for the last
time and it came to the show-down, while the giant
threw his cards upon the cloth with a muttered
oath and made as if to push back from the table,
the girl pushed hurriedly through the crowding
men and laid a hand on his shoulder.

" Broke, Brideman? '' she asked softly.

Brideman looked up with his red-rimmed eyes
that were full of rage.

" What's it to you? '' he asked brutally.

" Nothing," said Lolo, smiling, " only — ^if you
want another try you can have it."

"Yes?" he sneered, "what'U I stake? Fm
cleaned."

HIGH PLAY 23

And he made to rise, stiffly, waveringly, tired
suddenly to, the point of breaking.

But Lolo pushed him down with her little hand.

" Stake me," she said, " I give you leave."

Brideman stared for a moment in dull amaze.

Then his great laugh boomed in the room once
more, the sparkle came swiftly back to his blue eyes.

" Done! " he cried, " come on, young-un, if you're
a stayer ! I stake Lolo, th' Rose o' Santa Leandra,
against your whole pile ! "

And he waved a steadied hand grandiloquently
toward the stacks of gold and silver.

For the first time the stranger raised his eyes
and looked at the girl, but she did not meet his
gaze.

Sanchez forged forward and caught his daughter
roughly by the shoulder, but she put her hands on
her slim hips and shook him off disdainfully.

" I'm nineteen," she said, " go on, Brideman."

Sanchez flung up his hand, snapped his fingers.
His brown face was ashen grey.

" Damn ! " he said savagely, " ypu hussy ! Yes,
go on, Brideman, and I hope to God jrou lose her! "

For a second or so the stranger hesitated,
scanned the faces of the principals in the little play.
Then he smiled, picked up the cards, deftly shook
them together and shoved them over.

"All right," he said, "and you may have the
deal in the bargain. One hand to draw."

Brideman, steady as a rock, dealt, laid down the
pack and picked up his hand.

24 VAL OP PARADISE

He discarded two, picked up the pack again and
looked at the other. The young man threw down
four -cards and smiled.

The girl by the table flushed like a sunset. A*
slight chance he took to win her, in all truth !

In silence Brideman dealt him four cards, took
his own two, and in silence they both spread down
their hands, face up.

Brideman held two queens and a jack, a five and
a trey.

The stranger held four kings straight, and a nine
spot — the card he had held from his discard. Lolo,
watching, saw this card turn up and the flush deep-
ened in her dark cheeks.

With an oath Brideman bungled up from the
table.

** Devil^s luck ! ^^ he said hoarsely, " but you're
sold, Lolo, body an' soul ! " — ^with which word and a
mocking laugh he lurched to the bar.

And Lolo, looking up with her wide black eyes
and her pomegranate lips parted like moist rose-
buds, smiled at her master like a siren.

The man looked down at her and the smile died
on his own face. For a long moment he r^arded
her, gravely.

Then he stepped to her side and took her
hand.

^ " Little, bold, pretty thing," he said, " don't do
these tricks any more. Here, hold your sash."

And he caught the broad end of the striped van-
ity that swung at her knee, spread it, gathered its

HIGH PLAY 25

end tight, closed her hands about the knot, and,
turning to the table, swept into the sack thus
formed the load of gold and silver thereupon.

Then he stooped and kissed her lightly upon the
rosebud of her mouth.

" Go home with your dad," he said, " and be a
good girl."

Then he gathered his men with his quick glance,
walked to the door and out into the afternoon sun-
shine.

In ten seconds the whole bunch after dashing,
rattling, and scrambling among the horses, had
mounted and turned and were making out of town
toward the south with the great red horse five
jumps ahead, his satin hide shining, his huge neck
bowed, the cloud of his black mane like smoke above
him and his long tail a fan behind.

Every man at Hunnewell's but one crowded out
upon the porch to watch their going.

**Boys," said Hunnewell, solemnly, "do you
know who that was? "

" No," came the answer promptly, from several,
" but v(e got a good guess."

"Bight, I take it," said Hunnewell, "That's
Vdantrie from th' Border, and his band o' ban-
dits — ^Don Eeeota Velantrie, they call him, south,
though why — for that name, I don't know, an' he's
th' smoothest lad in th' world, they say. I saw him
once before, in a little town over th' line, an' he
remembered me. They say he knows a lot that
some folks don't — ^your name, too, Brideman."

MM*

26

VAL OP PABADISE

But Brideman lay across the table inside^ dead
asleep.

^^ Yelantrie ! '' whispered Lolo Sanchez, her small
body bending gracefully under her weight of
weaJthy her soft mouth moist with that careless
kiss, " Vdantrie of the Border ! Santa Maria— it
was high play today ! ^'

CHAPTER III

THB FRIENDS OF PABADISB

THE summer was glorious upon the land. The
sun was high in a cloudless sky and a little
wind came eternally in from the bunch-
grass levels. The scattered mesas stood majesti-
cally in the blue haze, tawny and imposing. Here
and there a weathered finger of stone cut up against
the sky stark as a skeleton.

Under the light the wide alfalfa fields, of which
John Hannon was inordinately proud and which
the ranchmen hated, lay like spread emerald to-
ward the south. Scattered against this vivid
green the Red Brood grazed in opulent plenty.

Redcloud the big and savage stallion, Hotfoot,
old but built like a racer and with the look of a
colt, Dawnlight the evil one, Firebrand and The
Flame, they were a sight for gods and men in their
perfection. They ate of the sweet forage with
daintiness, raised their beautiful heads from time
to time to look over their world, and called their
shrill challenges to all and sundry beneath the
high blue sky.

Only Redstar across the fence in a separate field
grazed in quietness, unmindful of the ramping
creatures that came and raced along the fence with
lifted tails and snorting nostrils.

27

28 VAL OP PARADISE

He had no need of bluster, of wildness.

Little he cared for the Red Brood's challenge.

He was the king and his behaviour was fitting his
royalty.

The hatred of one stallion for another was in
Bedcloud's scream of anger when he passed, but he
had never been known to answer it. It was as if he
felt a mighty contempt for the wild red horse, a bit
smaller than himself, not so dark in colour, heavier
and of less speed.

"Redcloud hates th' king," said John Hannon,
smiling, ^^but Bedstar don't know he's on earth.
It's th' heart o' th' thoroughbred in him, th' instinc-
tive knowledge that they ain't rivals — can't be no-
how."

But Lightning, the beautiful gelding, slim,
graceful, tall and swift, gentler than all the rest,
was of a nearer mettle. If there was one horse on
the ranch that could hold a candle to Bedstar, it
was this dark bay beauty with his mane like a
lady's tresses and his gentle eyes.

But Bedstar's eyes were gentler, his soft coat
darker with a faint black shadow drifting through
it along shoulder and hip where the dim black dap-
ples shone, his regal head higher, his nostrils
smaller, more delicate, his slim legs longer, his
massive withers higher.

When Val Hannon looked at Bedstar a mist of
tears sometimes dimmed her eyes, a lump rose in
her throat.

^^ It doesn't seem possible that a horse could be so

THE FRIENDS OF PARADISE 29

grand^ so— so human/' she said once^ ^^he's more
than a horse in all truth. There's a spirit in him
that's like a soul.''

And she was right, for when she came to the
upper bars and cupping her hands to her scarlet
mouth sent out the double whistle that was between
them only, it was more than a horse who raised his
splendid head — alert enough now — ^lifted his flow-
ing tail a trifle, arched his high neck and sailed
away across the fields toward her — ^it was a friend.

Nay, more — it was a lover.

A lover who smelled of her hair with long inhala-
tions, as if he drew the beloved scent of her into his
lungs, who rested his great muzzle on her shoulder,
rubbed his cheek on hers — red satin on tawny vel-
vet — who nibbled her hands with his soft lips and
searched her garments for tidbits.

He stood like a rock while she flung her saddle
on him, cinched it carefully and mounted — but then
Dame Nature opened her hand and poured upon
him the speed of her swift things — the hill streams
rushing, the winds across the plains, the fires that
sweep through grass.

When Redstar swept out from the wide ranch
yard and sailed away down across the levels with
Val in the saddle, her father sometimes stood and
watched them with such a look of pride as a king
might wear beholding his domain from the moun-
tain tops.

"By all that's wonderful, Tom," he said once
softly, striking a fist in his open palm, " there isn't

30 VAL OP PARADISE

a pair like them in this world ! Do yon know what
that horse can do? He's eight years old an' he

was once " Bnt there he checked his impnl-

sive speech and his steady eyes flickered a bit upon
the distant two, and Tom Briston did not know
what it was that Redstar conld do, or had been.

And Valy loose in the saddle as an Indian, shot
through the soft bine atmosphere like a bolt, her
dark eyes half closed, her lips apart, a smile dim-
pling in her cheeks, drunk to the heart on the glori-
ous speed, the keen singing of the wind in her ears,
the humming thunder of Redstar's shining hoofs.

Redstar himself was no less drunken with his
own perfection. He had run always — always, since
those dim days which he had nearly forgotten —
and the open sage was to him an amphitheatre.
There was nothing in all the blue distance to stop
him.

There was nothing in the land to catch him —
had never been. He had run with Redcloud, and
with the slim young racers Firebrand and The
Flame, and with Lightning, but always he had run
away from them. Dawnlight had screamed and
fought her bit, and raged like a fury because she
fell behind, had stopped and plunged and acted like
a maniac, and John Hannon had never let her run
again.

Only Lightning, of all the speedy crew, had hung
on Redstar's flank for any length of time, and the
master had looked at him with new interest.

^* There's somethin' by-ordinary in this Lightnin'

THE FRIENDS OP PARADISE 31

horse, Tom/' he had said, ^' for th' Redstar's a high
gauge to judge by — ^a damn high gauge! "

On that soft warm day when Lolo Sanchez car-
ried her gold down through the gaping street of
Santa Leandra and did not see the gazers for her
dreaming, Val Hannon drifted down across the
bunch-grass levels on the great red king and smiled
in the joy of freedom, the splendour of her youth
and the glory of the open spaces.

She went by Crystal Plow, moving gently above
its sands, shaded by the poplar tree that grew be-
side it, a sentinel to be seen afar, and lay on her
face to drink. Redstarts velvet nose a foot from her
cheek. She sat for a while in the scant and fitful
shadow of the poplar and looked far to the south
and west, her dark eyes hawk-keen. Redstar, too,
searched the wide-spread land and found in it noth-
ing alien, only the cattle grazing in scattered herds,
an occasional rider and his horse dark dots among
them, a buzzard or two sailing high in the blue;
yault

So presently they left the Crystal Flow and
swung far and away toward the north and west, to
skirt the foot of the Mesa Grande that lifted its
flat top high above the surrounding levels, to find
the narrow trail that went up its south side in steep
and dangerous slants, and to climb to its high table-
land where the ancient Indian huts stood, hollow
and deserted, whipped by the winds and eaten by
their sands.

These silent places held a lure for Val Han-

32 VAL OP PARADISE

non, had always drawn her from the time when, a
little child, her father had first brought her here to
scan the world below. They stood as they had
stood for uncounted years, their blank walls broken
only by the small apertures that let in the light
high up along their sides, their clumsy ladders
leading to their flat roofs, their dark and dismal
rooms peopled only by the ghosts of the departed
race that made them. The places of their fires were
still extant, signs of cunning craft still lingered in
the scant utensils that littered some of them, the
pictures cut in the crumbling walls.

An impr^nable stronghold had once been this
Mesa Grande, keeping safe its timid people. There
had been no trail up its weathered sides in the days
when they prayed to the sun-god from its top, only
such a secret way that two men might keep down an
army. The trail had come with the white man
whose curiosity had conquered the precipice.

So Val rode about the table-land this day and
looked down on all the plains about, scanned the
forbidding range of the Blind Trail Hills that
frowned against the east, and sauntered slowly
through the silent group of huts. Presently, as the
sun went down the west and the desert twilight be-
gan to sift its wondrous colours through the golden
haze, she rode out to the edge of the mesa that faced
the west and sat searching the world below.

Bedstar, too, looked keenly all around with his
bright dark eyes, his great head high in the air, his
long mane flowing gently down the arch of his neck.

THE FRIENDS OP PARADISE 33

Val sat straight in her saddle, her hands folded
on the pommel.

And as they rested so in the hush of the eternal
silence alone on the mesa with its ghosts of a van-
ished people, something moved on the plain below,
far off to the west, and caught their searching
gaze.

A band of horsemen rode there, swiftly, sweep-
ing out of the north where lay the town of Santa
Leandra, and one shot out ahead, a leader.

The girl shaded her eyes with her hand and
watched this rider and his horse. A red horse it
was — a great red horse whose mane lifted above
him like a cloud, whose beautiful body lay stretched
along the earth in skimming flight, whose whole
make and seeming were oddly familiar.

For a long moment she watched, while her eyes
grew round with wonder and her lips fell apart.
Then she dropped her hand and laid it on Redstar's
neck as if she made sure of his living presence.

'^ Sweetheart," she said at last, incredulously,
^ if you weren^t here beneath me I'd swear you ran
yonder, as sure as death ! "

And far off there where he rode like the wind
itself toward the mystery of the all-engulfing Bor-
der, Velantrie rose in his stirrups and scanned the
solitary horse and rider, standing like a statue high
on the mesa^s edge.

He was too far away to see the wondrous beauty
of the red king facing him, or to know his rider for
a woman. But with his characteristic gaiety he

34

VAL OP PARADISE

/

stood up for a second and sweeping the broad hat
from his head, waved it in circles.

And Val Hannon, answering the stranger's sig-
nal, raised a hand above her head.

Then Velantrie was gone into the distance and
she tamed Bedstar and went slowly down the dan-
gerous trail, among the veils of purple and crim-
son and amethyst which the coming night was wav-
ing across her dreamy f aca

CHAPTER IV

THE CROSS IN THB WILDERNESS

THE summer dirowsed upon the land. The cat-
tle moving in the sage cast up clouds of dust
that hung for a time and settled back upon
the spot. The winds had died this day and the bra-
zen sun was monarch. Where the Little Antelope
trickled sluggishly between its low banks, to nurse
the straggling growth of trees that lined it, the
heat was somewhat tempered. Cottonwoods grew
here, tall and slim, and many wasatcha trees to
spread their lacy shadow, and there were desert
flowers planted in stone-edged beds among the sand,
while the sword-like spikes of the maguey plant
reached out to catch the unwary. This was a des-
ert garden, rugged, grassless, inured to heat and
drought, yot pleasant to the eye and mind as many
a more favoured spot was not. It was hard and l^are
under foot, its walks swept daily by hands passion-
ately eager to serve its master, and it was neat in
all its comers. To the west of the garden and be-
yond the trees, standing out against the sun and
the desert winds like a speared and shielded war-
rior, the long blank walls of the Mission took the
light on their pale expanse in a way to be seen for
many miles across the plains.
And it was a warrior, this aged and wind-worn

86

36 VAL OP PARADISE

stmcture, its shield those same impregnable walls,
its weapon the simple cross that caught the sunsets
from its lofty roof, for beneath its spreading feet
were gathered as sad and motley a crew as one
might look upon in many a long day's search, and
they were safe in its protection.

Peons, waifs on the changing tides of fortune,
refugees from the turbulent land across the Border,
those broken and dispossessed by the warring fac-
tions that destroyed their own and got nowhere,
the sick in mind and soul and body — ^these came to
the doors of Refugio and none was turned away.

For at those doors stood Father Hillair^ in his
worn old cassock, his rosary at his side and in his
wise blue eyes the undying love for humanity that
burned, a vital flame, lighted at the heart of God
Himself.

For forty years Father Hillair6 had watched the
stretching plains. He had seen some piteous
things, and more that were tragic, and some that
were bright with faith and courage and everlasting
fidelity — such as John Hannon's love for his blind
wife — and he was gentle with understanding. He
had said the service in Refugio when its ancient
benches were packed with a dark-faced crew, and
when there was no voice in the sounding spaces but
his own to give response. Mexicy Indian, white
renegade, they had fluxed and failed through gold-
fever, cattle-war, peace and Border raid, a human
stream from which he had striven ceaselessly to
salvage drift. Many he had saved to better things,

THE CROSS IN THE WILDERNESS 37

some he had buried with tears of anguish on his
own cheeks, and more had slipped away through
his eager hands to drift and idle in the loose sin-

ways that rived that lawless land.

But those who came to the Mission must work,
for Father Hillair^ was poor in worldly goods and
the scant fare that was so free on the long board in
the great bare living-room behind the church must
be taken from the soil with unceasing labour.

Frijoles grew on the level stretches across the
stream and a few bands of cattle ran on the open
range, while sturdy grapes purpled on the wall that
clasped the garden. Brown bread and milk and
simple home-made wine, and the frijoles always,
these waited the comer at the Mission steps, be it
dawn or dark or in the dead of night. But some-
times the slices of the dark bread were thin, the
tea strongly flavoured with sage, for gold came
scarcely to the padre^s coflfers in these days, and
there were so many things to buy in the distant
towns — garments for his ragged refugees, tobacco
for his aged pensioners who sat in the sun, their
work-days done, and medicines for the abandoned
girl-mother with her baby at her breast and her
racking cough — and sometimes Father Hillair^
was desperate in his need.

This day he sat in the shadow of the Mission
among his dry garden beds and read his ancient
books with comfortable pleasure, for two new dere-
licts on the sea of life had been added to his flock
— and there had been beans in plenty and he had

38 VAL OP PABADISE

watched them satisfy real hunger and follow Jose-
phina to the inner regions for much needed sleep.
These were two peons, a man and woman, whose
last ragged sheep had gone to feed the no less
ragged guerrilla band of some nameless generalise
Hmo across the line^ and who had given up in the
last apathy of despair. They were worn and done
from long foot-travel, and it had joyed the father's
heart to take them in.

Therefore he read and smiled from time to time
with the little creasing lines beside his gentle lips
that made the babies cUng to his hand, the lean dogs
stretch at his feet in serene confidence.

The sun went down toward the west and the long
blue shadows started out across the level floor from
the lone shafts of stone and the table-lands of the
mesas, and the little wind began to whisper from
the south, while the wondrous colours came sifting
through the light.

Those colours had been to Father Hillair^ one of
the priceless possessions of his life, a gift of God
in all truth, a wonderful healing and inspiration.

Never was the day so dark, the future so uncer-
tain, but that his burdened heart found peace and
hope in their beholding.

Rose, lavender, amethyst, purple, they came sift-
ing in the late light like fine gem-dust through the
ethereal gold of the sunshine, to spread and drift
all across the level world of the rangeland, master-
paints from the brush of the Master Artist.

Today, as they flushed the high vault above the

THE GROSS IN THE WILDERNESS 39

garden, Father Hillair^ shut his beloved books and
rose to greet them.

In that instant there came the sound of some-
thing more to greet — ^the long-roll of a running
horse upon the distant plain.

He hurried to the opening in the high wall where
the great gates turned back upon it and looked
eagerly out. For a moment a pucker of concentra-
tion drew in between his brows, then smoothed
away as the charming smile came upon his features.

•' Ah! '^ he said aloud, delightedly, " Velantrie! ''

It could be no other.

There was not in the land another pair like the
two who came skimming forward like a swallow,
the man and the horse — there could not be. They
seemed not two but one, so perfectly did they blend
together in motion and appearance. The rider car-
ried his broad black hat in his hand and the wind
of their coming blew the black hair back from his
white forehead, and he looked for all the world like
a little boy running to his mother, for his face was
bright with laughter to greet the old priest in the
gate.

" Father ! " he cried as the great red horse thun-
dered up to slide in the dust and stop with his
haunches to the earth, his fiery eyes a-shine in his
broad bay face, ^^ Padre! Ave! ^^

He flung himself from the saddle and caught the
padre's hands in both his own, pumping them up
and down, boy-fashion.

'^ My son ! " said Father Hillair^, gladly, search-

510 VAL OP PABADISE

ing the sparkling face, ^^ Son — son ! It has been
long, long since Refugio has seen yon. Come in.
Have you eaten? "

** Not since yesterday, but what matters? '*

He laid an arm affectionately about the old man's
shoulders and turned toward the garden, carefully
gathering the bridle rein he had not loosed.

" What matters? I am a man who masters him-
self, father. My appetites, my passions — they
serve me, not I them. I could go another day —
two more days — without food and still ride to the
Border."

He laughed and looked down in Father Hillair^'s
face, though the priest himself was a tall man.

60 they entered the garden, drawing the great
red stallion after, and the father stopped and se-
curely closed the gates.

^^ Bonifacio," he called into the depths where the
shadows were already falling, ^^ come and take The
Comet. Give him," he continued as a slim youth
came briskly up through the wdsatcha trees, ^'a
little water — not much — ^and rub him down well.
Then a feed from the bins in the north stable. Keep
watch upon him thyself until I call. Come, Don-
ald," and he led the newcomer in along the great
wall of the church where the sturdy creepers grew
to clothe it like a velvet garment, between the bor-
dered beds, and to the high-ceiled living-room where
the candles already glimmered in their black iron
sconces and the sweet face of the Christ looked
down from the dark walls in pitying compassion.

ffHE CROSS IN THE WILDERNESS 41

Dusky women, their faces meek with the sweet-
ness of that house, went noiselessly about the set-
ting of the evening meal, and old Josephina, for
many years the chatelaine, greeted the stranger
with a warmth of recognition in her wrinkled fea-
tures.

" Sefior ! " she said, " you ride to Refugio again ! *'

" Again, Josephina," he answered, " the memory
of your frijoles has caused me many an ache as I
lay under far stars. I must return," and he spread
his slim hands comically over the slender flatness
of his middle region. The old woman laughed and
turned eagerly toward the dim domain rearward
from which came sweet odours.

Always a woman delights to feed a man, to see
him eat to repletion, to gather the empty plates and
cups afterward. It is a throwback to the days
when food meant strength, and strength meant pro-
tection to her and to her offspring.

And so, presently, Velantrie of the Border sat
at the long table with the padre of Refugio and ate
as one famished, though with grace and manners.
He bowed his black head through the short bless-
ing and withheld his hand with a slow repression,
though hunger was with him keenly.

Father Hillair^ watched him with smiling eyes
in which there was a shadow of sadness, and gos-
siped about a thousand innocent things, the young
calyes in the lean herds, the sickness that had taken
sharp toll of his sheep, the news of the scattered
ranches, though an observer would have noticed

42 VAL OP PABADISB

that he carefully ayoided all reference to those wild
doings of the Border which furnished his salvage,
the refugees and drift.

When the meal was finished the two men went
outside again to the starlight and the dry garden^
drew together the worn chairs by the little table
where lay the ancient books, and talked in that deep
communion which comes with liking and under-
standing.

Twilight deepened and the tip of Velantrie^s
cigarette glowed in the dusk, sign-manual of com-
fort.

They talked Swiftly and nearly, and the padre
leaned forward and laid his worn hand on Velan-
trie's knee.

" Oh, my son," he said softly, " I have grieved
over this waste for all the months I have known
you ! Loss — ^loss ! It is not right, a crime against
humanity for a man like you — a man who can con-
trol himself — ^to cast his high chance to the four
winds."

Velantrie smiled in the gathering darkness.

" You know, father," he said, " that I'd take that
from none but you."

" I know," said the priest firmly, " and I dare. I
have dared much in my time. The keen knife is the
kindest. I dare because I love you."

'^ And I take it and come back — ^f or the same rea-
son. See," he laid aside the cigarette in his fingers
and reached in a pocket on his hip.

*^ I have ridden a day and half a night to bring

THE CROSS IN THE WILDERNESS 43

yon this. I will cover the same ground in the next
few honrs to get back from whence I came. But
the bringing gives me joy.''

He lifted the old man's hand and placed therein a
buckskin bag, heavy, and musical with the dull
clink of gold.

" Take it," he said, " it is yours."

But Father Hillair^ shuddered and his fingers
slipped loose from the other's pressure, so that the r
bag fell back upon the table.

" I — can't," he said sadly, " it is tainted gold."

" True," said Velantrie, gaily, " I took it from a
mine-owner who owns a thousand peons, soul and
body, who drives them through hunger and oppres-
sion down into the darkness of death with never a
hope or a comfort." His soft voice had become sud-
denly hard and bitter.

'^ Damn him ! I hope to break him this coming
year — ^if I keep my breath that long."

Father Hillair^ caught his own breath in a sigh.

** Oh, my son ! I cannot vision such a thing! It
cuts me to the heart ! Give it up — give up this life.
Start over — go away — ^into the north — somewhere
— and forget these rides, these desperate risks, this
dashing against the law of God and man! All
these months I have prayed for you. I will con-
tinue until my object is attained. I must save you,
son."

With a quick spring Velantrie was on his feet.
He swept the bag of gold into his hand and held it
out

VAL OP PABADISE

" Will you take it? '• he asked evenly, " to buy
ifood for your poor, your aged, your sick and your
little ones that swarm here in your blessed garden?
Or shall I ride south again and squander it on the
gaming tables of Cej6n and Caremente, on the girls
of the dance halls? "

He was steady, cool, ready to do what he prom-
ised. Slowly the old priest rose to face him in the
dusk. He stretched out a hand.

" I will take it, my son," he said, " a doubtful
means to a holy end," and he took the bag of gold
and dropped it in the deep pocket of his cassock.

" See," he said further, " the candles are lighted
on the altar. It is time for the evening service.
iWill you not come in — ^just this once? "

Velantrie shook his head.

" Why ask me that, father? You know I am a
man of sin, that I am forsworn. My foot would
profane the Mission sill."

" Nay," said Father Hillair^, quickly, " it is laid
for such."

" But not mine. You know my life — and what
my future is. I cannot cross a church door — ^not
I, with my pledge of blood. Forget it — ^and re-
member me, padre, at dusks like this."

Once more he smiled, that brilliant lighting of
his lean face that shone like a fire behind a curtain,
and putting a hand on the other's shoulder shook
it gently. Then he whirled and put his fingers to
his lips. The whistle that startled the quiet gar-
den was enough to split the eardrums. Instantly

THE CROSS IN THE WILDERNESS 45

from the distant side of the enclosure where the
stables stood there came an answer, a wild, shrill,
heavy scream, the piercing neigh of a stallion, and
a hnge dark bnlk came trotting swiftly down the
walks beneath the trees, its rein, jerked from the
hands of Bonifacio, dangling at its feet.

The Comet came to his master.

Velantrie pnt his palm to the horse's lips, their
secret sign of greeting.

" Old man,'' he said gently, ^^ hueno/^

"A wonderful creature," said Father Hillair^,
" a king in all truth."

'^ Right. There isn't a horse like him in the
world, father, not in all the world — save one. One
other only — and when "

But Father Hillair^ interrupted hurriedly.

**Come, my son," he said quickly, "come with
me to the door — ^just to the door. Will you not?
The peace, the promise, of the holy place — will you
not look upon them, even from afar — ^because I
love you? "

For a moment the young man stood in silence.
Then he shrugged his shoulders airily, took off his
hat, touched The Comet with his fingertips, and
followed the priest along the wall to where a nar-
row door let into the church at the side near the
front. Here he stopped with his foot withheld from
the sill.

He leaned forward with his shoulder in its flan-
nel shirt against the lintel, his black head bare, his
blue eyes steady and bright, and looked long and

4« VAL OP PAEADISE

in silence at the beauty of the altar with its hand-
worked altar-cloth, its sacred adornments, its can-
dles burning softly. The church was very old. Its
vaulted roof was black with age, its every beam
carved in entirety by long-vanished hands. Pillars,
thick as a man's body, stood majestically down the
centre, and along the walls hung the sacred pic-
tures of the Stations of the Gross. At the left of
the altar stood a lovely statue of the Holy Virgin,
her beautiful ivory hands folded meekly on her
breast, while at the right the Christ Himself looked
tenderly down upon the dusk and the shadows and
the emptiness.

Long Velantrie stood and gazed and his blue eyes
between their dark lashes became very soft. The
priest beside him, keen reader of the human face,
saw that softening and his good heart leaped. He
was too wise to press the slight advantage.

Instead, when the other stirred, he held out his
hand.

** Good-bye, my son," he said gently, " come when
you can, and remember that always at dusk your
name ascends from this altar."

"Good-bye, father," said Velantrie, gravely,
'^ huetuts noches. YaW ^^ he added gracefully, giv-
ing the farewell in three tongues.

Then he gripped the other's hand hard, caught
the pommel and leaped into the saddle without a
foot to stirrup, though the great horse stood seven-
teen hands to his bare shoulder.

There was a sudden leap, a thunder of hoofs on

THE CROSS IN THE WILDEBNESS 47

the hard-beaten earthy and they were gone, a wind
and a bolt of speed, out through the gate which
Bonifacio had opened.

For a long moment Father HiUair^ stood in the
dim light by the narrow door of the church and lis-
tened to the long-roll of their going, a lifting, ex-
citing sound, and he shook his head and sighed and
touched the gold in his pocket.

^^ I would that he came no more to this land of
his destiny," he whispered miserably, " gay, reck-
less, lovable — and lost to all eternity. What if I
told him of that other horse — that only other one
in all the earth to match The Comet, the wondrous
red king of John Hannon's brood? What, when
he hears and knows — as he must surely do if he
comes many times to Refugio from the oblivion of
his Border-land of crime? Tragedy will some day
stalk through the sunlight here — ^and I — I will be
powerless to help ! Jesu mio/^ he whispered more
sadly still, ^^ it will be in higher hands than mine! "

Then he turned into the sacred dimness of the
Mission where shrouded heads were bent between
the benches and rosaries slipped through dark fin-
gers, for the drift and the flotsam of Refugio were
already gathered there.

As he mounted the altar steps he was still listen-
ing to the thunder of The Comet's mighty hoofs
upon the plains, growing swiftly fainter in the sum-
mer night.

CHAPTER V

" WHY DON^ YOU BUN BEDSTAR? "

NIGHT lay soft on Paradise. Under the bine-
black dome of the starlit sky the great shad-
owy stretches of the rangeland went ont
and away into infinitude. The ancient house^
cnrved round its patio, stood dark and forbidding,
like a fortress. Among the purple iris the little
whisper of Bluewater muimured in the silence.

Tree toads talked at intervals and a cicada
shrilled its endless tune, while out in one of the gay-
fringed hammocks young Felicita, slim and brown,
listened with downcast eyes to the gentle voice of
Arias Gomez, also slim and brown, pleading the
ancient tale in the ancient way.

" Listen, corazdn dulce/^ he whispered, " there is
the empty cabin beyond the third corral. The
SeSor John will give it me for the fixing up a bit —
new windows and the roof re-thatched with grass.
I have three rugs, woven by mi hisabuela, and there
are many cooking pots, little used, packed in the
storeroom from the last round-up. The SeSor
John, now, he will give them me I know for the
good work done at the branding. Did he not praise
himself my deftness with the irons? You have
only to say the word, amor, and we will go to Re-
fugio, to the padre ^^

48

"WHY DON'T YOU RUN REDSTAB?" 49

But Felicita was coy and shook her black head
and smiled maddeningly with a flash of her white
teeth, and not even the Inre of the three brilliant
rags of Arias' great-grandmother could bring the
coveted promise from her pretty lips. The boy
pleaded despairingly while the cicadas sang and
from the far corrals there came the scream of Bed-
cloudy ramping in his pen.

In the great room of the deep adobe house there
were no candles lighted, for though Fanita had
come soft-footed to do that service, the master had
waved her away. John Hannon sat in one of the
big chairs with the cushions and smoked the short
pipe that always rode in his inside pocket or be-
tween his lips, and listened in ineffable content to
the gentle airs that came softly from the ancient
keys vnder Belle Hannon's fingers. Old airs they
were, songs they had sung together in their court-
ship, the sentimental tunes and words of two gen-
erations back, and to him they represented Music
in its entirety.

Stretched on a couch in the farthest comer, her
slim length well-nigh compassing it from end to
end, her sun-browned hands beneath her head, Val
lay and listened, too, though her thoughts were not
in the past but the future — they had to do with
the coming dance at Hunnewell's store, and with
the gay bunch of riders from the outlying ranches
who would be there in all their gala attire.

It would be Fourth of July and every cow-
puncher who could straddle a cayuse would attend.

50 VAL OF PARADISE

There would be races, and, as always, the Bed
Brood would be there, too.

All, that is, but Old Hotfoot, shut out of the ex-
citement by constant motherhood — ^and Bedstar the

Lightning would run away from all and sundry
as he had done for two years now, and Dawnlight,
if the master would put her up, would make a
speedy showing, and this year, for the first time,
the young matched racers. Firebrand and The
Flame, would have their chance. Bedcloud was
getting a trifle old and she had overheard some talk
between the boss and Tom Briston concerning his
withholding.

Poor Bedcloud — ^wild and strong and keen as the
wind in spring!

She visioned him, screaming in his stockade,
pounding the earth with his shining hoofs, when
the rest went off to town — for the first time with-
out him!

She frowned in the dusk with a quick sorrow for
the old racer's passing.

Bedstar now — Bedstar the great king — he would
graze placidly in his green field and take no note
of the Bed Brood's arrogance and pride as they
trotted away, each with a rider in attendance.

He would not so much as raise his splendid head,
blink his soft eyes.

And yet of them all he was the king — ^faster than
their fastest, stronger than their best.

Why, wondered the girl as she had wondered

".WHY DON'T YOU RUN REDSTAB?'' 61

many times before, why was it that John Hannon
Beyer ran the king?

" Dad/' she said presently, when there came a
loU in the tinkling mnsic while Belle Hannon
hammed an elnsiye melody the better to bring it to
her fingertips, " Dad — ^why have yon never mn Red-
star in the races? '*

"Eh?"

The rancher took the pipe from his lips suddenly
and sat np in his chair. His handsome dark ^es,
60 like Val's own in one or two expressions, nar-
rowed in the darkness.

" Why do yon ask me that? "

At the tone of his voice any one on the rancho,
save and except these two women, wonld have
ceased to press the conversation.

"Why, I don't know," his daughter answered
calmly, *^ except that, keen as yon are on horseflesh
and racing, you've never let him mn. And you
know, and I know, that he can beat anything
under God's heaven that ever ran on these
plains."

John Hannon put the pipe back between his lips.

" Perhaps," he said, " that's just th' reason. He's
too good."

" Well — I guess that's so."

The girl studied a moment.

" That's so. There's nothing to run with him —
not in a mile — ^nor a thousand miles! And he'd
dwarf the Red Brood down to nothing. Yes — I
see."

52 VAL OF PARADISE

She lay silent, thinking, while the elusive melody,
caught in Belle Hannon's pale fingers, came tin-
kling forth in the twilight.

At the end of an honr of perfect qniet, save for
the old piano's voice, when her mother swung
around on the ancient bench and the master rose to
take the outstretched hand that had held him fast
for lo, these many years, Val stretched her healthy
young body and rose also.

" Dad,'' she said again, " did you ever see a horse
that looked like Redstar in every line and motion? "

John Hannon stopped in his tracks, stockstill.

*' No," he said at last sharply. « Why? "

*^ Because I did — ^from the top of Mesa Grande
the other day — ^a horse that led a bunch of riders
from up Leandra way — ^a horse that was a dead
ringer for the Redstar, or I'm a liar. Colour, size,
speed, action — ^it might have been the king himself.
If I had not sat upon him myself that very minute
I'd have said it ivus the king."

The rancher wet his lips, but he straightened up
and, taking his wife's hand, led her out from
behind the bench, his arm about her frail shoul-
ders.

" You're seein' things, Val," he said with a care-
less laugh, ** there's no boss in this country that
looks like th' Redstar. Th' height o' th' mesa—tV
distance — ^they distorted your sight. No— there
ain't no match f er him this side o'— — "

** Where? " asked Val as her father paused.

** Hell," he said succinctly and led his wife away.

" WHY DON'T YOU RUN REDSTAE? " 53

But just the same Val Hannon thought seyeral
times in the days that followed of the great red
horse that ran on the spreading plain far off be-
yond the mesa, and wondered where it came from —
for it was a stranger in the land, of conrse — ^and
who its rider was.

He was young, she guessed, for the hat swinging
in circles above his head that day had attested the
exuberant spirit of youth.

But there were many things to think of beside a
stranger and a mysterious horse— there was the
dress for the coming dance, for instance, which she
would make with her own clever fingers, what time
she could spare from the sweeping rides on the
plains, the romps with the dogs, the shrieking
games about the patio with the brown babies of the
Mexicans who served the rancho. These games
were none too popular with John Hannon, who be-
lieved in his servants staying in their places —
namely, at the northern part of the huge old house.
He did not like their noise, fearing it might disturb
Belle's tranquillity.

" Val," he said sternly a few days later, *^ why
can't you keep that Mexican rabble where they be-
long? "

" Dad," she answered flippantly, " little things —
like babies and kittens and puppies — ^belong wher-
ever I am. And if I happen to be in the patio, why,
how can I help it? "

Her father, floored by this audacious reasoning,
snapped his fingers, as if he gave it up, and turned

54 VAL OF PARADISE

away. But Val, swift on her feet as wind, leaped
after him and slapping a hand on his shoulder,
man-fashion, swung him to face her. The smiling,
intimate look in her dark eyes, bent steadily on his
own, melted his displeasure like snow before the
^\m and all was clear between them on the instant.

^^ Shake,'' the girl d^nanded further, holding out
her hand after the manner of the game they had
played from her babyhood when anything went
wrong betwi^n them, and John Hannon struck his
palm to hers, while the little crinkles came about
his eyes, so that the two faces took on the same
expression, were cast for an instant in the same
mould.

" I'm your own daughter, old man," she said
gaily, " chip oflP the old block — am I not? "

" Sure are," the boss answered proudly, study-
ing her features.

"Bound to rule, then— eh? To have my own
way^— strong-headed — got to take the bit when I
think I can— sometimes against odds? "

« Sure thing."

" Then, dad — ^you'll find the babies rolling on the
walks sometimes — ^unless you whistle first — ^but if
I'm like you there, rest assured that I am like you
in other ways, too.''

The laughter was gone from her face by this
time, a quick gravity coming in its place, and she
held hard to his hand.

" like you in loyalty — ^in deep love — ^in courage,
I hope. I'd be a poor substitute for the son you

"WHY DON'T YOU RUN REDSTAB?" 55

never had if I was not all of that — a poor pnpil
with such a man as yon before me in example."

Bnt the rancher could bear little of that. Al-
ways at mention of such things he flushed beneath
the dark tan of his skin and turned away, brusque
and businesslike.

^^ He's a modest man, our dad. Belle/' said Val
this day, standing with a hand on a hip, watching
him swing away down the shaded walk toward the
stables at the north) ^^ a very modest man ! And
handsome ! It's a good thing I wasn't around when
you and he were young, for I'd have fought you to a
finish for him."

"He's the best man on this earth," Belle Han-
non answered softly, '^ the most wonderful husband
a woman ever had."

But if to his women John Hannon was good and
brave and tender, combining the rugged qualities
that passed for virtue in this wild land, there were
others in the scattered community who thought dif-
ferently — Quinlan of the Bar-Star, for instance,
over at the southwest beyond the Broken Buttes,
whose fine black racer. Live Coal, had been run off
his feet by Redcloud in his prime — and the Atti-
son boys, Sam and Dyke, of the Circle A, forty
miles due west, whose tongues were not so guarded
as they might have been.

" Funny thing John Hannon hain't never lost no
cattle," Dyke had said once in Santa Leandra,
**when every outfit this side the line, an' further

56 VAL OF PARADISE

north than ns, too, has stood to lose a share eacU
year. What's his magic, I'd like to know? "

And John Hannon had heard the word and when
next he met Dyke Attison he tapped the two bine
gnns that swnng always at his hips and looked the
other hard in the eyes.

"Here's my magic. Dyke," he said evenly.
" Want t' see me make it? " And Attison looked
back as hard.

" Not particularly," he answered, " but I don't
take backwater for what I said. I'd still like t'
know some things, bein' curious."

" Curiosity killed a cat, onct," snapped the boss
of Paradise, " an' it ain't lost its power none. I'd
hate t' haf t' bore you. Dyke — ^but you'll either
keep a careful tongue in your head about me, or
draw quicker'n I can."

" An' you know you've got me there," Dyke said
hotly, " an' not only me but every man on this
here range — an' you use th' knowledge to bully th'
country with "

He never finished the sentence for John Hannon
flashed a hand, lightning-swift, at his hip and shot
him where he stood — a fine, clever bit of marksman-
ship that broke the right arm above the elbow and
left Dyke Attison maimed for life.

Hannon stood holding the smoking gun that day
and looked around the street of the sleepy town
with his dark eyes narrowed to icy slits, and none
spoke nor offered to help Dyke, clutching his shoul-
der and swearing in white fury.

"WHY DONT YOU RUN REDSTAR?'' 57

"Shoot me full o' holes!" raved the latter,
" sieve me if you want to ! But Fm still curious! '^
which proved him a man of strong mettle, indeed,
facing John Hannon's guns.

" I ain't killin' you t'day," said Hannon, " I'm
teachin' you a lesson — an' any others that might
be — ^too damned curious."

And he shoved the gun into its holster, turned
on his heel and strode away without a backward
look.

V

CHAPTER VI

THB CRY OF A DESERT OWL

**"^ "^AL darling/^ said Belle Hannon, groping
through a door to the depth and coolness
of the great room which was her daughter's
own particular place, "how's the dress coming
on?"

Val went quickly to meet her and drew her for-
ward to a chair beside the deep slit of the west win-
dow. It was a rule of that house that none should
pass those outstretched hands.

The master would have struck a servant who did
so, and have spoken to his daughter in a tone she
would have remembered for the same offence.

" Perfectly lovely ! " cried the tall girl, " see."

And she snatched a fluff of white from the high-
built bed and spread it on her mother's lap.

" There are gathers, little ones, about the neck
and a pretty spreading ruffle. The sleeves are short
— ^just a bit above the elbow. The skirt is full and
has three little ruffles too. I shall wear my red
silk sash' and the Spanish shoes with the red heels
that dad brought me last year when he came home
from his trip. There are red roses beginning to
bloom on the old bush beside the kitchen door and
I'll put one of them behind my ear. I have the red
feather fan, too."

58

THE CBY OF A DESERT OWL 59

^^ Beautiful ! " said the woman, her sensitive fin-
gers feeling expertly of the sheer material on her
lap, ^^ seeing " the make of the garment, ^^ you will
look like a full-blown rose yourself, Val, I know."

The girl laughed and a small dimple came out in
her left cheek just above the lips* comer. Her dark
^es were melting soft at the vision of herself in all
this finery.

"You just bet I will," she said serenely, and
Belle laughed also. There was a close camaraderie
between these two.

" And your father says Boyce Clendenning will
be up from El Rio Rancho to run his silver horse."

Instantly Val frowned.

" Funny how dad likes that man," she said, " he
thinks the sun rises and sets in him."

" He must be a good man, else your father would
not think so," said Belle, quietly, "and isn't he
young? "

" Yes."

" And handsome? "

" Yes, he is. Big, blond, heavy-shouldered, and
with the smartest eyes I ever saw — except dad's
when he's studying some one.

"Boyce Clendenning's got sense, I stake my
pile."

" And he's got more than any man of his youth
in all this country. The proper worth of El Rio
Rancho itself makes him rich, not to mention the
range he holds."

" AU true. Belle dear," said Val, " but just the

60 VAL OF PARADISE

same I'd rather dance with Billy Smith from the
Lazy B, or that Texas boy who rides for Quinlan.
And say, say, mama ! but that boy can dance ! He's
slim as a reed and his feet are like tumble weeds in
the wind. I hope he'll be in Santa Leandra this
time. Haven't seen him for six months/ not since
the day I rode with dad after cattle down Arroyo
Pecos way. Met him on the desert and had a talk,
but dad was in a hurry, like he is always, and
wouldn't let me stay half long enough."

" Nice boy, of course," said Mrs. Hannon, " but
the daughter of the Boss of Paradise must look a
little higher than a cowhand, dear. Tour father
has reached always for the highest, the best in its
line, as he says of everything. ' I Uke it,' he says^
no matter what it is, ^ because it's the best in its
line.' I guess he likes Clendenning because he's the
biggest cattleman — after himself — ^in the country."

" I guess," said Val.

" That's why he loves thjg, Bedstar, too— why he's
so proud of you, Val, and of Paradise. He's got
the best in its line of everything the rangeland
gives."

" In wives, too," laughed the girl as she put the
finishing touch to the gauzy white fluff and hung it
carefully away behind a curtain against the ancient
wall. " I guess we're not some proud family, all
right! Did you ever stop to think. Belle, that
maybe we're too proud — ^that we are, maybe, arro-
gant? Father Hillair6 now, look how he lays up
for himself stores of riches in Heaven, and how

THE CRY OF A DESERT OWL 61

empty of pride he is. Pride — pride — I don't know
— we're full of it — and, my sakes, proud that we
are! But it's natural. Who on this earth could
help but be proud of Paradise and the Red Brood !
Only a dead man ! "

And pride was in Belle Hannon as she rose and
went swiftly and sure-f ootedly away into the north-
em regions of the house on some business of the
mistress among her servants, humming a little soft
tune — the pride of the loving heart in the strength
and power of those it loves.

Val, clear of the tedious sewing, stretched her
young arms, snatched a aomhrero from a comer,
drew a flannel shirt over her curly head, donned a
riding skirt and ran out along the stone floor of the
narrow veranda that edged the house and the patio
both.

Three cowboys in dusty clothes were coming in
from the corrals, Briston the foreman. Dirk Ham-
mond and Rosy Peters.

At sight of the girl every pair of eyes softened,
each lean face broke into a smile.

As if she did not see them Val strode briskly
along and bumped into them — and they, knowing
the little trick, leaned in together, making a solid
wall of defence — the weakest wall of defence in all
the world against the sweetest assault.

" Oh ! I beg your pardon, gentlemen ! " cried
Val, her lovely eyes wide, " but you're all so small I
— I nearly ran over you ! "

" No offence, lady, no offence ! " said Briston, po-

V

62 VAL OP PARADISE

litely, as they yielded reluctantly to let her throngh,
^^we know o' course when one has such big feet
they ain't careful where they step. Don't mind
us/' and he ducked to dodge the instant slap this
sally brought from her none-too-gentle hand.

Chuckling the riders passed into the house, for
Fanita was ringing the big bell that spelled dinner
to those within its sound, but Val swung out to the
corrals and looked among the horses there for Bed-
star. He was not there, but Redcloud was, trotting
restlessly about, his beautiful head tossing, his pas-
terns springing with every step, pliant as tempered
steel.

" Jos6," she called to a lad' beyond a fence,
"Where's the red king?"

" The Seflor John, he rides to el oeste today."

So. The boss rode west. And he rode Bedstar,
of course.

Well, she would take Bedcloud — or no — there
was Dawnlight drowsing in the sun, belying her
name and her nature with seeming meekness. Val
caught her up and flung a saddle on her shining
back — and the vixen spread her slim legs, drew in
a deep breath and lifted her spine a trifle^ ready for
something when the cinches should tighten up.

But Val Hannon was her father's girl in her
utter lack of fear of horseflesh, in her masterful
spirit.

Now she laughed and set a quick knee against the
mare's ribs and jerked the latigo with a practised
hand.

THE CRY OE A DESERT OWL 63

" You would, would you, you pretty wildcat? ^'
she said, " well — swell — swell if you want to ! "

•And she pushed the breath out of Dawnlight's
lungs with every pull of the strap.

The high-tempered creature switched her long
tail and laid her pointed ears back along her neck
and her eyes flashed, but Val put a heavy hand to
her bit and set her back with a jump.

In the midst of the action the girl put her foot to
the stirrup and went up like a cat. Dawnlight
screamed and flung herself sidewise, shaking her
head, but Val lifted her on the bit and came down
with her braided quirt across the shining flanks —
and Dawnlight steadied like a lady, prancing out
of the corral on all four feet, properly. This was
the only one of all the Red Brood who needed disci-
pline.

Once out of the yard and beyond the house with
the open plain before her she broke into instant
flight and sailed down and away like a bird, a won-
drous, easy gait, swift and light and sure, that
brought a smile of pleasure to her rider's face and
forgiveness for her faults. It was noon and the
Tast spread of the range country lay clear and
sharp beneath the light. The distant mesas, great,
flat-topped, straight-sided remnants of a prehistoric
level, some of them a mile long and half that wide,
stood here and there on the floor of the plain, mon-
strous, imposing. Bunch grass, mesquite, with
here and there a tall cactus spike, grew so sparsely
that one strange to the country might marvel how

64 VAL OP PARADISE

the cattle lived. But they did live, huge herds of
them, and waxed fat, were rounded up, looked over,
the young ones branded, the beef cut out and driven
away to the tiny station on the thin line of steel
that linked the cattle land to the distant outside
world.

Val rode down between the weathered monu-
ments, left Paradise miles to the north and west,
crossed the Little Antelope, where she let the mare
drink deep of the brackish water, and came up out
of its shallow dip between the scattered cotton-
woods that fringed it.

Before her, some three miles off, the gaunt, pale
bulk of Refugio Mission stood boldly out. Val
smiled aiid struck her heels to Dawnlight's flanks
and rode fast toward the ancient landmark. Afar
off they heard her coming, for much of this land was
hollow somewhere beneath, so that the open
stretches were like a mighty sounding-board, carry-
ing the long roll of a running horse to ears far dis-
tant.

Father Hillair^ stood to greet her in the gate, as
he had stood to greet so many, but few comers to
Refugio brought with them the joy to light his
kindly face that shone there now.

He had known Val Hannon from her babyhood,
had seen her take her first steps, had held her in his
arms at the christening font, and from the first
wide, grave stare of her dark baby-eyes, had loved
her with all his tender heart. He had heard her
small sins, had taught her the depth and sweet-

THE CBY OF A DESERT OWL 65

nees of religion as he conceived it, and she was
sweet and wholesome as a flower new-blown.

But she was daring as a young boy, wild in her
riding, keen for the open and had little of the pretty
tricks of indoor women.

Now she flnng off her horse, caught the father's
hand, stooped impulsively and kissed it, then shook
it like a man with a strong grip, and looked up in
his face with the crinkling about her handsome eyes
that made them woman-soft on the instant, no mat-
ter how wild she had been with sun, wind and speed
a second before.

Always when Val dashed up like this Father Hil-
lair^ thought of another who came in much the
same way, another wild rider, but who, alas ! came
usually with the night and whose name did not pass
the padre^s lips.

" Father dear," said Val, " how are you? "

" Well, my daughter," he answered, " and happy
in my humble walks."

" Then you've been getting some more refugees,"
said Val with conviction, " for only when you sling
another load to your shoulder do you speak like
that. And already the load is sky-high and ready
to topple. You're some juggler, padre/^ she added
fondly, ^^to always keep in under. How's Jose-
phina? "

" Excellent."

" And Maria and her baby? "

" Not so well, I'm sorry to say. The cough, it
stays with her, and the baby pulls her down and she

66 VAL OP PABADISE

grieves ever for the worthless one who left her to
face despair."

Val clicked a pityiag tongue and turned in at the
gate of the garden.

Bonifacio, without being called this time, came
eagerly and took Dawnlight, getting as reward one
fleeting smile from the girl which brought a sparkle
to his dark face, for this Val Hannon was beloved
by those who knew her, high and low alike.

" I'll come back, father," she said, smiling, " but
first I must go and see Maria and Josephina and
the new refugees — for I know I'll find some."

And she went swiftly into the house and passing
through the room with the long tables and the pic-
tured Christ, leaned in the door to the kitchens.

At the far end Josephina, the slim elderly
woman, dark as a berry, who had been house-
keeper there for more years than Val could remem-
ber, exclaimed softly in Spanish and came forward
to pat her arm and smile and talk swiftly of the
doings of the Mission and the distant rancho.

Father Hillair^ waited patiently for a long hour,
while Val went through the labyrinth of rooms
and sat on the sanded walks under the wasatcha
trees with Maria's baby on her lap, and listened to
the latest tale of atrocities across the Border
whence came the new refugees.

At the end of that time she came back to him, car-
rying her hat in her hand, and sat by the table in
the shade and visited in that deep communion
which attends friends.

THE CRY OP A DESERT OWL 67

She told him of the dance to be in Santa Leandra,
of the new white dress, and described minutely the
red-heeled shoes, the sash and the way the rose from
the old bush would hang behind her ear.

The priest listened gravely and with as much
interest as though she discussed the year's rain and
the scant crops.

The sun went down the heavens and the won-
drous colours came sifting out of Infinitude, and at
last the girl rose swiftly and called for Dawnlight.

"I always forget, father," she said, **how the
time flies when I am here. Dark will catch me
now."

So she mounted and leaned to press the padre^s
hand, and presently she was gone, down across the
levels toward the Little Antelope^ a streak of colour
in the lovely light, and father Hillair^ smiled
as he watched her. There was never a sigh in his
heart for her. She was the b est the country held,
that he knew, pure, quick, clean of heart and mind
and soul, strong with courage, tender with un-
awakened love^ the most admirably fitted creature
he had ever known for the great game of life.

Nay — ^harm would leave Val Hannon far and
bye.

Goodness, calm, joy, these must be her portion if
there was any truth in the old belief that virtue
prospered, and Father Hillair^ was at peace for
her.

She was the shining star of his service, the thing
that he had helped to mould and make, and he was

68 VAL OP PARADISE

proud of her as so humble a man might be of his
handiwork. In his pride he gave full credit to the
sweet and gentle nature of Belle Hannon in its in-
fluence upon her — but he gave no thought to that
strong man^ her father.

John Hannon and Father Hillair^ had looked
into each other's eyes for years with a veiled under-
standing that never passed their lips in question or
answer.

" Dawnlight, my beauty," said Val as they
stretched away on the other side of the Antelope,
" we'll have to run if we make it home by good dark.
Don't think we will at that."

The racer needed no further urge. The rein laid
loose on her neck was like a flame to tow. She
dropped her slim loins, laid her long neck out in a
straight line with her back, her nose almost in line,
and gathering her shining hoofs beneath her began
to drum such music from the plain as set Val smil-
ing with the joy in speed that always possessed her
when the Red Brood ran.

For a long time Dawnlight did not change the
humming note of her stride, while the levels raced
away beneath her and the purple and amethyst and
lavender came sifting down through the gold of the
late light, and the soft wind hummed by, but pres-
ently she slowed and, coming down to a trot, swung
her graceful feet with a neat precision. Far ahead
Arroyo Pecos, deep and dark and fringed with a
thick growth of low bushes, cut across the land.

Night was coming swiftly.

THE CBY OP A DESERT OWL 69

The rose and lavender gave place to cool blue
shadows, the sun went down behind the Broken
Bnttes far, far over to the west, and twilight set in.
Stars came out on the pale sky and Val carried her
hat in her hand, while Dawnlight, eager for home
and her kind, mended her pace to a little lope.

Long before they made Arroyo Pecos it was
dark, the soft warm dark of the half -desert country.

Where the dim trail dipped down the steep banks
of the cut and the shadows were darkest, Dawn-
light snorted and halted, to pound on the brink
with her sharp hoofs.

" What ails you? " said Val aloud, " afraid of a
little dark? Go on."

And the mare went, though with deep breaths of
suspicion that whistled in the night. Down and
across and up they went, swiftly, and were all but
on the levels again, when Val jumped in her sad-
dle, for a desert owl cried almost in her ear from
the thick bushes on her left — cried and waited and
cried again, to be answered far up the arroyo, and
to be still.

Dawnlight raced away toward the distant sanctu-
ary of Paradise, and the girl in her saddle never
knew that the owl had voiced a warning, nor that,
an hour later, two men rode out of Arroyo Pecos by
different ways, one, a huge, square figure of a man
on a swift and heavy horse, toward the south, the
other to the north.

Never knew that, had she been below the rim of
the cut, so that she might look up against the

70

VAL OP PABADIBE

stars, she would have known the great red horse
that heaved his massive withers over the brink with
ease and power for Bedstar the matchless — ^nor the
man in his saddle for the Boss of

CHAPTER VII

THB FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDBA

THE glorious Fourth came up across the range-
land as all Fourths should, clear, bright,
warm with sun and cool with a little wind
that would soon die and leave heat and dust to rule.

At Paradise a small tragedy had been enacted,
for Redcloud for the first time in his life had been
left behind when the Red Brood went away to run.
Alone in his paddock the old racer ran this way and
that along the fence, his head high on his lifted
neck, his eager eyes straining into the distance
toward the north and west where yesterday at dusk
those other favoured ones had been led away, each
beside a leading horse, their red coats shining in
circles from much rubbing, their neat hoofs danc-
ing. For the first time the stallion had been ad-
judged unfit to go— to go on a halter, with a rider
in attendance.

He was to go indeed, though in another capacity,
for Val Hannon's heart was sore for him and she
groomed him with her own hands, combed his flow-
ing mane and tail, and put upon him the splendid
silver-mounted bridle that was the Bedstar's own.

^^It's a shame,'' she said aloud as her father
passed the corral, " after all he's won for you, dad.
You should have let him go and learn his defeat

71

72 VAL OP PARADISE

slowly — ^with the others finishing ahead — ^not this
way with his heart breaking."

" No," said John Hannon, sharply, " Bedcloud's
done. There's nothing goes to the running from
Paradise bnt what's th' best — what can make
good."

" Wrong," said Val, " the Bedstar's the best —
and he don't go."

John Hannon did not answer and Dirk came out
with a cow pony ready to ride the twenty miles to
Santa Leandra with her, and Val mnst run into the
house to get the neat flat package that held hej;.
finery and was to be tied behind Dirk's saddle, to
kiss her mother and push Fanita laughing into a
comer. The sun was coming up on the peaks of the
Blind Trail Hills, it was Fourth of July and she
was young.

So presently she rode out of the corral on Bed-
cloud, her dark eyes shining and with roses in her
dusky cheeks — and Dirk beside her rested adoring
eyes upon her.

As they turned away t9ward the north Val
turned in her saddle, halted, for from far down in
a stretching field there came, clear on the morning
air, a keen and ringing call — the whinnying cry of
a horse to his beloved — and Bedstar stood, a spot
of colour on the green, his head high, his nostrils
blowing, his soft eyes watching eagerly.

The girl rose in her stirrups and, cupping her
hands to her lips, whistled the two keen notes,
though this time they were reversed — the first one

THE FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDRA 73

f allingy the second rising. This was not ^^ Come "
but " Good-bye," — and they held more portent than
she knew.

Then she went forth to the joy of a ride at dawn,
the visit to the town, which was a rare experience
to her, the dance and the races.

Santa Leandra was gay with life. Its straggling
street was bright with women in their cheap finery,
with Indians in bright coloured blankets, with
youths and maidens walking together and with un-
counted children and dogs.

At Hunnewell's the tables were crowded full of
players and Hunnewell himself, genial, perspiring,
mopped up his ancient bar before a changing but
constant line of men in chaps and sombreros.

The punchers were in from all points of the com-
pass. They had ridden the range for months with
little diversion, had handled rope and branding-
iron, had saddled their untamed cayuses in frost
and wind and sandstorm, and now they were en-
titled to the full measure of merrymaking, and out
to get it.

Wide hats, adorned with silver coins, sat rak-
ishly on arrogant heads, silver-spotted belts and
riding cuflfs were in evidence everywhere, and poor
indeed was the cowboy who could not sport a fancy
pair of chaps, carved spurs and flaming red, pink
or green " sleeve-histers."

They teetered about on their high heels, rode up
and down the street on prancing horses, discussed
the coming races and laid bets on this horse or

^ m I M „■■<.

74 VAL OP PARADISE

that. Down at the south end of town the horses
that were to run were gathered in small corrals, all
with their people in close attendance, and a con-
stant stream of observers came and went.

"Th' Hannon bunch looks fit this year, an' no
mistake," said a man from over by the Broken
Buttes, "but Where's th' old stallion?"

" Ain't runnin' him," answered Briston, shortly.

" No? What fur? 'Fraid o' Clendenning's sil-
ver? "

" 'Fraid o' nothin'," said the foreman, pointedly,
'* simply ain't runnin' him this year.'^

Clendenning's silver horse, Dollar, was good and
sufficient cause for fear as he squealed in his pen
and watched the rest with wild dark eyes, and so
was the young black mare, SilksMn, bone's bone
and blood's blood of that once famous runner. Live
Coal from the Bar-Star beyond the Broken Buttes.
Quinlan had never forgiven Bedcloud for that far-
past defeat, nor his owner either.

Val and Dirk came into town a little before noon
and Redcloud pranced and tossed his head, think-
ing it was old times again and perhaps visioning
the orgy of running to come.

The girl's dark eyes were alight with pleasure as
she took in the brilliant crowds, and they crinkled
joyously when the Texas boy spied her and came
swinging gracefully up to greet her with a hand at
his hat-brim. Dirk frowned, for all Paradise was
jealous of its sovereign.

"I'll be boun'!" said the stranger in his soft

THE FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDRA 75

drawl, "You did get heyh, Miss Val! I ben a-
waitin' an' watchin' fer you sence nine o'clock.
Got t' speak fer some dances ahead, an' I so do,
right this minnit. T'all won't forget me, come
night? "

" Sure won't, Texas,'' promised the girl warmly,
" I've been counting on dancing with you myself —
for your feet are sure like thistle floss, boy, and no
mistake."

And she passed on to the corrals where Briston
stood to take the horses. Rosy Porter and Perly
Jacks and Siff O'Neil, all riders for Paradise,
crowded around her.

^ Val," said Perly, " how you goin' to divide th'
day? Who's goin' to walk about with you first? "

"Any way suits you, boys. Toss jacks, I guess."

And the cowboys drew a liae on a convenient
post and proceeded gravely to throw their jack-
knives at it. Perly and Siff tied, the others fell
out, and the honour at last fell to the former, who
promptly cocked his broad hat on his curly yellow
head, pushed his studded belt down about his slen-
der hips, patted the knot of his gay kerchief, and
went off beside her, proud as Lucifer to swagger
about Santa Leandra with Val Hannon, the little-
known but much-stared-at beauty girl of the bunch-
grass country.

Ah, Fourth of July when one is young and lives
far and bye from civilization !

They sauntered up the straggling , street and
gazed happily and interestedly at all they met, and

76 VAL OF PABADISE

Val remembered that she had not warned the boys
to be careful of that package on Dirk's saddle and
must needs rush back to the corrals, her new rid-
ing skirt ^swishing at her heels, to tell them to get
her a room at the Hudson House and put it awaj
therein to await the evening and the dance.

She was gay as an Indian herself in her scarlet
silk waist, black tie and tan riding skirt, which
same outfit she would wear all day, and she was
happy as a lark.

She encountered some few people that she knew,
a girl from a ranch far north, several cowboys, and
lastly Boyce Clendenning, handsome in his heavy
blond way and lazily interested in her. He was
far more interested in this quick dark girl than
was apparent on the surface.

" Will you eat dinner with me, Val? '' he wanted
to know abruptly, standing before her in the beaten
dust of the trampled street — and Perly flushed red
beneath his golden tan.

The boy bit his lip and wait^

Val — their Val — eat dinner with any one beside
the bunch from Paradise? It would be a sacri-
l^e, a humiliation and a cause for battle ! Dinner
under the tall elms in the grove at the north end of
town where the barbecued beef, pork and mutton
scented all the air, and the long board tables were
spread for all and sundry, was an institution of the
rangeland Fourth. She who sat down thereto with
any man as good as belonged to him all day — ^fbr
the games, the races and the dance at night.

THE FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDRA T7

v.

It was significant of Paradise that not one
puncher sought him a girl, that all would attend in
a body with John Hannon's daughter in their
midst, proud of her beauty, alert to every word or
look — ^all, that was, save Tom Briston, whose first,
last and only care was the five red horses in his
charge.

Now Val looked Clendenning over coolly and
shook her head.

^^No," she said, softening her refusal with a
smile, " I've got my partners — five of them."

Perly reached up an eloquent hand and pushed
his hat forward from behind.

" Nice day," he observed pensively.

Clendenning did not flush nor change the steady
gaze of his blue eyes.

"Lucky five," he said gently, "suppose you'll
give me a dance or two then — after the five? "

" You bet," said Val.

" Say, Val," said Perly when they were beyond
earshot, "that Boyce Clendenning's got th' nerve
of a dozen bobcats, ain't he? "

" Sure has," said Val with conviction.

Dinner took an hour — and suffice it to say in
passing, that every one from Paradise did it full
justice. Shortly after the crowds began to gravi-
tate, as by common impulse, toward the southern
end of the town where the open plains came up
abruptly, where the corrals stood and where the
"race track" lay. This was simply a long level

78 VAL OF PARADISE

stretch; flat as one's palm and soft with trodden
loam, the most natural and ideal track in the world.

There was no fence about it and the gay crowds
strung out along its entire length. It fell to Siflf to
look out for Val, and never did man accept honour
more delightedly. Siff was young and full of laugh-
ter, vain as any O'Neil before him had ever been,
and they sauntered halfway down the track, craned
their young necks for a good vantage for both start
and finish and sat down on the naked earth as sim-
ply as the squaw a rod beyond.

" I say, Siflf," said Val, eagerly, " the horses do
look fine. They'll run away from this bunch easy."

" Fine's th' word, but they sure got a bunch t'
run from this year. Last year it was Brightstone
Kit, an' th' glass-eyed pinto that th' Injuns brought
in from th' hills, an' th' bay horse from nobody-
knew-where that they said belonged to th' Black
Bustler. They was not so bad, either, 'petic'lar that
there last. But this time it's some diflferent. That
there Silkskin, now, she's some horse, I stake my
money ! She's some baby ! "

"Bah!" said Val, hotly, "I'm some surprised
that any one from Paradise could look at that black
skate twice when the Red Brood's in. What do you
think this track'U look like when Lightning comes
running down it like an engine? We can't say yet
about Firebrand and The Flame, though you know
how good they are at home. If only Dawnlight'U
be a lady, now "

But there was a dust and the shine of horses at

THE FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDRA 79

tbe track's head and Val was on her feet instantly^
her sentence forgotten. Bay, brown, sorrel, five
horses pranced at the starting line. Closing her
eyes to slits to sharpen their vision she descried
DawiUight ramping on her bit with Perly trying to
quiet her.

Three times they made false start. The fourth
they were away and the entire human fringe edged
in on the track to watch them come.

"Hi! Yi! Yi!"

The yells yipped down the track in a wave as the
beautiful creatures lay down to earth and ran in
pure joy of the open, the light and their own free
power and speed.

Dawnlight was the only well-known horse in this
heat, the others being newcomers from up north.
For a time they were well bunched and Val held her
breath. Then the red mare, stretching out like a
shaft of light, began to forge ahead.

" Running away ! " cried Val, " Coming ! Com-
ing!"

" Wait ! " warned SiflP with an anxious frown.

And almost on the word Dawnlight threw up her
head, broke and pitched off to one side, wild and
ugly as a demon.

" Damn ! " cried the cowboy frankly.

The big brown gelding came running in far
ahead.

Twice in the three heats that made the race
Dawnlight was to ramp out and be disqualified.

80 VAL OP PABADISE

^^ Dad will never let her run again when he hears
this," said Val, " and I don't blame him, either."

But the mare was forgotten, for the first heat of
the next race was coming on and they could see the
brilliant shine of Firebrand and The Flame, pretty,'
nervous youngsters, among the darker horses. Silk-
skin was there, and two other blacks and a rangy
Indian claybank, but the flame-red colts with their
creamy manes and tails took the eyes of all behold-
ers. They were gentlemen, too, minding their or-
ders and sweating with nervousness — eager as wind
to be gone.

And when they were gone, at last — gone with an
even start, neck and neck with Silkskin and the
claybank, they ran like wind indeed — ^light on their
drumming feet, skimming the earth like swallows.

" Lord ! Lord ! " said Val, softly, her eyes like
stars, " you darlings ! You blessed darlings ! "

For Silkskin was drawing away from the rest like
the centre of a rising stream — and the tossing
cream crests were flanking her on either side!

Silkskin was far and bye the best — coming true
to the predictions for her — and the younglings from
Paradise were keeping pace with her faithfully.

Farther and farther stretched the distance be-
tween the three and those behind — they flashed by
Val and Siff and shot under the wire nose and nose
and nose!

The fringes surged into the track after them and
yelled like mad.

^^ Some bosses ! "

THE FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDRA 81

'^ Something new in oY Santa Leandra ! "

** Good enough t' run with Dollar ! "

While Dirk walked the colts about and the hum
of voices grew like swarming bees, the first heat of
the day's big race was on. This comprised Dollar,
the famous silver; a dark hQrse brought in from
somewhere at the last moment, though it had been
duly entered ; and Lightning.

Sane, gentle, alert Lightning strode to the start
and waited like the gentleman he was, with Rosy
on his back.

Val could see the shine of his red coat between
the light of Dollar and the shadow of the stranger.
She could hear the voices betting and appraising
and knew that he was dividing the money with
Clendenning's horse.

There was little jockey work this time, for these
horses were old to this game and it was only a mat-
ter of moments until they were away and coming
jBteadily down the stretch.

Ah ! This was running !

Well matched all three, they hummed down the
track evenly for the first quarter. Their slim legs
were a blur beneath them, their necks were a
straight line, their eager faces keen as flame on a
night sky.

Dollar was running as he could run, a machine,
steady, true, perfect, keyed to a rising note. He
set the pace and kept it lifting, gaining, gaining in
speed with every jump. And at his side Lightning
ran, but differently. If Dollar was a machine,

82 VAL OF PARADISE

Lightning was a living, breathing, aspiring bundle
of nerves and brains. Like a wind, like a fire in
grass, as they said of the Bed Brood always, he
came down the track, instinct with life.

Slowly the (Grange horse fell behind and the two
others b^an to run away from him. For another
quarter they drummed down together, neck and
neck, flashing eyes by flashing eyes.

And then Bosy lay down on Lightning's neck
and reached a hand caressingly out along his cheek.

" Come on ! Come ! " he yelled — and the red
horse came !

Ah! There was "somethin* by-ordinary in that
Lightnin' horse," as his master had said once.

Now, at his rider's call he caught a great breath
into his lungs, dropped his slim belly down to
mother earth — and simply ran away from Dollar,
the best horse in the range country hitherto.

Far out ahead he poked his nose under the wire —
and came down from his speed as quickly as he
could, a gentleman always.

The crowds were yelling and Val wiped a hand
across her misty eyes.

" SiflP," she said unsteadily, " we don't want Bed-
star to run! Not ever! Lightning's good enough
for us ! "

With tingling delight the girl watched the
other heats of the rest of the races, and when the
great day was over Dawnlight was in disgrace for-
ever, the younglings had won a name by finishing
two heats out of three nose and nose with Silkskin,

THE FOURTH AT SANTA LEANDRA 83

while nothing in the entries had kept in sight of
Lightning.

" It's been a great day," she said happily as she
walked through the (Just with Siff down to the cor-
rals to talk it all over with the boys, and to pet the
shining beauties, one by one.

"Dawnlight, poor giri," she said pityingly,
**why is it that you are cursed with such a vile
temper? "

"She's cussed with devilment!" said Periy,
viciously, for he was sore to the heart with the
mare's ruin. Secretly Perly loved the uncertain
vixen above all the Red Brood and had hoped great
things from today. Now they were dead dreams,
indeed, and he was sore, sore.

But Briston took them all, victor and vanquished
alike, into the shelter of his wise care and dusk
found them blanketed and close-herded in their
corral, their names, and John Hannon's, on the
lips of all the rangeland.

Once more had the Boss of Paradise proved his
passion for " the best in its line."

With the coming of twilight Val vanished from
Perly's watchful eyes into the recesses of the Hud-
son House to prink and preen with the girl from up
north, to emerge with the first strumming of the
fiddles across the road at Hunnewell's, sweet as a
dark flower in her white dress with the red sash,
the Spanish shoes, the rose behind her ear — ^which
same big bud had ridden wrapped in wet cotton in
a little wooden box in the bundle — and with the

84

VAL OF PABADISE

red feather fan hung to her brown wrist bj a rib-
bon.

In the middle of the bunch from Paradise — all
save Dirk whose first watch it was at the corrals —
she entered the great room of the store where every-
thing movable — save and except the bar — ^had been
removed, and she was proud as any queen riding
between her loyal subjects — ^proud with the pride
of Paradise.

CHAPTER VIII

A BUSTLER^S HAND

HUNNEWELL'S store had been cleaned and
decorated for the occasion. The erstwhile
dim windows shone clear, the worn floor
had been swept and smoothed with sand and water,
while from the smoky rafters hnng yards and yards
of ancient bnnting which had seen many a Fonrth.
Benches had been placed along the walls and on
them bloomed a gay border of stnrdy rangeland
flowers, matron, maid and comely half-breed, with
here and there a f nil-blood sqnaw frankly wrapped
in her blanket, and all were decked in their best.
All wonld dance, too, or nearly all, for this was a
land of few distinctions.

In the northeast comer a platform had been
erected and on it sat two men, their fiddles pressed
to their shonlders, or held on their knees while they
tightened and picked judicially at the whanging
strings.

One was a yonng chap from up along the river,
the other Doc Tackert, weazened, old, spry as a
kitten and snch a wizard with bow and catgut that
he was known afar with a shining fame. The hum
and whisper of a gathering crowd was to him like
smoke to a war-horse, an excitement, an inspiration
and an intoxicant.

85

86 VAL OF PARADISE

Now he tucked his instrument beneath his wrin-
kled chiQ, flourished his bow, began to pat with his
cowhide boot in exact and perfect time, and swept
forth in some rousing tune of the time and place.

There was a surge of cowboys across the floor, a
great bowing, a rustle of rising women, and the
voice of the caller cutting high above the music.

" Git yore pardners ! "

Hunnewell's was a large structure. On the
cleared floor four sets could dance with ease at
once. In a twinkling, it seemed, these were formed,
all in their places, all orderly and waiting for the
word to begin.

A garden of butterflies, a close of vari^ated
flowers, a web of colour, was HunneweH's floor that
night. Cowboys in gay silk shirts, studded belts,
corduroys and soft ^^ store " shoes, led out girls and
women in all the tints of the rainbow.

" S'lute yer pardner ! '^

The web sank and rose in billows with the bow-
ing heads.

" Lea<J th' lady an' shun th' gent ! "

Hands reached for hands like scuttering leaves
in a wind.

" Back to th' place from whar ye went ! "

The web broke and moved, swift, scintillant, gay,
a mass of swishing skirts, of slipping feet, of happy
eyes of laughter and of light, and the dance was in
full swing.

In the thick of it moved Val Hannon, sweet, smil-
ing, her dark cheeks flushed Uke the sunsets on the

A RUSTLER'S HAND 87

mesds, her dark eyes sparkling like harbour lights,
her filmy ruflBes flying, her swift feet in their vanity
of Spanish shoes with the red heels slipping light
as thistledown in the mazes of the figures. Oppo-
site her danced Briston, whose place and honour it
was to have the first dance by reason of his stand-
ing at Paradise. The foreman was nearing the
forty mark in years, but he was a handsome figure
of a man, slim-hipped, tall, easy as a youth and he
had danced before Val was born.

He had taught the girl her first steps, and they
met, swung, parted and bowed with perfect
rhythm and accord. So beautifully did they step
together that, in a land whose people danced from
babyhood, they drew attention and admiring com-
ment.

" Who's th' big girl in th' red sash? " a blond boy
wanted to know of Perly. " My aunt Maria ! but she
can swing them pretty feet ! "

"That's Miss Val Hannon," said Perly, stiffly,
" from Paradise Ranch.''

" Oh ! Th' hell you say ! " said the boy softly,
POund-eyed, " I've heard of her a lot. Know her? "

" Ought to," answered Perly, softening but pride-
ful, " ride f er Paradise."

" Oh ! Interduce a feller? "

" Sure," Perly flicked an imaginary speck from
his immaculate pink silk sleeve, "after we've all
danced with her. There's five of us an' we always
come first with Val."

The boy was properly impressed but he did not

88 VAL OP PABADISE

fail to haunt Perly untile later in the night, he got
the coveted dance.

Ab Val wove in and out among the dancers her.
keen eyes were taking in all there was to see — ^the
dresses of the women, the good dancers among the
men, the prettiest girls.

And so it was that when the ^^ square " was done
and she was drifting around the hall with Bosy in
a waltz, she looked down into the upturned small
face of a girl so dark, so brilliant of eye and cheek,
so vital, that she turned her head and gazed after
her in wonder.

Like a flame, like a flower, like something full*
charged with life and beauty, Lolo Sanchez swept
and drifted this way and that, brilliant as fire in
her scarlet and black, and she, too, wore a deep red
rose behind her little ear. For some unaccountable
reason, half unconsciously, Val Hannon raised a
hand a little later and pulling the bud from her own
dark hair, dropped it unseen in a comer.

A polka followed the waltz, and a schottische
the polka, and once more a square dance, and Val
parcelled them painstakingly among her own cohort
— after which the Texas boy was promptly at her
elbow with his soft eyes and his softer voice.

^^ Ef I might make so bold. Miss Val? " he insinu*
ated gently, holding out an arm with an elaborate
crook.

And Val, delighted, thrilling with the joy of
youth and the charm of the stranger, swung out
with him in another waltz.

A BUSTLER'S HAND 8»

Perly and Bosy and Sifl and Dirk, all in the full
tide of the celebration, each had him a lady and
" went to it " with the vigour stored from six
months' hard work on the range. Not since the
Christmas *^ doings " had they shaken a foot, and
they made up for lost time. But though they
tapped their high heels with the best of them, cut
pigeon wings on the comers, and made gay love to
this girl and that after the happy fashion of their
kind, it was a noticeable fact that not one rider
from Paradise frequented the long bar set well back
at the side.

Bosy and Siflf were known to " cut it high, wide
and handsome " upon occasion, and neither Perly
nor Dirk were saints, but when John Hannon sent
his daughter forth in their midst they neither
looked at, smelled nor tasted the customary re-
freshment of the region.

After the first number Briston had gone back to
the horses and sent Dirk to the merrymaking. The
boy had protested but the foreman pushed him out
with a friendly hand on his shoulder.

*' Go on — go on— don't try t' tell me you'd jus'
as soon stand guard with the ponies. Don't I know
how your feet are itchin'? " And the speaker
grinned with memories of fifteen years agone.

So the summer night waxed toward midnight,
dark with black velvet sky, soft with a million
stars, and Santa Leandra danced the hours away.
The town was full of horses tied to every tree and
hitchrack^ waiting with the patience of the plains

90 VAL OP PARADISE

breed for the masters who were ever prone to
tarry.

"Swing yore pardners!" came the cry of the
caller above the swish of slipping feet, " Ketch that
gal an' sashay by ! Rope that heifer with th' rollin'
eye ! All han- s roun' ! "

Late in the night, in the cool short hours, a group
of horsemen rode in from the open levels and tied
their mounts well out among the cottonwoods at the
west. A little later new faces appeared among the
crowd that surged in and out of the door at Hunne-
weirs. Sharp, alert faces they were, every one,
their keen eyes moving under their hat-brims with
quiet watchfulness.

These strangers came in unostentatiously and
stood in a bunch, somewhat close together. There
were nine of them, all clad in good garments, the
best that money could buy in a wider market than
the rangeland owned. Their soft fine boots were
stitched in colours, their hats were very vrAe and
ornamented with much silver after the fashion of
their kind across the line, and they wore handsome
belts and spotted cuflfs, while silver spurs, their
long shafts minutely carved by hand, jingled on
their heels.

In a land where many mysterious strangers rode
now and again and none asked their business, these
men drew instant attention. There was something
vital about them, something tense and guarded.
They stood quietly and watched the dancers, and in
their midst stood one who was of a different mould.

A RUSTLER'S HAND 91

Tall, slim, fine of feature and form, smiling, his
reckless face a-sparkle with the joy of youth in
music and motion, this man was not so guardedly
alert, and he carried his hat in his hand. Thick
black hair waved back from a handsome brow,
white with the bleach of the sweatband, sign man-
ual of him who rides much in the open.

His blue ^es under their black lashes roved
over the dancers with a bright bold glance.

" C'rall yore pardners ! " and the ^* square " was
over.

But old Doc Tackert was celebrating high him-
self and he gave scant time for breath between the
numbers. His weazened face was hot with the
liquor which Hunnewell lavishly provided on a
tray on the platform's edge, and he stopped but for
another sip, changed one knee over the other,
snapped his fiddle strings and swung forth in
another waltz.

As the couples drifted out again Lolo Sanchez, a
living flower in her black and scarlet, came down
the room in the arms of a big blond boy, her small
face upturned, her coquette's heart playing the old
game in her dusky eyes. The boy, none other than
the one who had asked Perly about Val earlier in
the night, was plainly in bad case, far gone in the
thrall of xhe little vixen, his young head turned
completely. He danced and never took his eyes
from hers, or from the silken top of her smooth
small head. Lolo was happy and as cruel as a
hawk.

92 VAL OP PARADISE

And then — ^the boy swung her past the door and
ghe looked up full into the smiling face of the
stranger.

'^ Velantrie! " she breathed to herself.

*^ What? " asked the boy, but she did not hear.

From that moment she forgot him utterly.

When the dance ended Lolo stopped, as if by acci-
dent-HSomething about the tiny slipper that en-
cased her light foot — ^bent and straightened it —
close by the door. As she rose, quick as a willow
wand released, she looked into Velantrie's eyes and
her own were eloquent.

^^ Master ! '' she murmured in Spanish, so low
that none but he caught the soft word. Then she
was gone with never a backward glance. Lolo was
an artist thrice refined. She knew men instinc-
tivdy.

She knew well that this stranger cared not a
whit for her, that not even her spectacular oflfer of
herself for Brideman's stake that day had touched
him, but she meant to touch him.

Therefore she whispered one thrilling word and
left him as if she had not spoken.

" Who's th' chap by th' door? " the blond boy
asked suspiciously, but Lolo looked up innocently.

^^ Which one?'' she asked, and the suspicion
died.

The newcomers did not dance. They had come
because Velantrie gave the word, because he chose
to look upon Santa Leandra at her merrymaking,
and that was all.

A BUSTLER'S HAND 93

Vdantrie did not dance either. There was none
whom he knew npon that floor save and ezcq[>t the
small girl who called him master, and he only
smiled with amusement as he watched her.

But Lolo Sanchez' quick little brain was working
and she meant to change that very soon. There-
fore she sent the least of her followers, a meek
brown Mexican, unnoticeable in the crowd, to
whisper something in old Doc Tackert's ear.

Lolo did not dance the next number, the first on
her record for the night, though lovers and would-
be lovers thronged about her. She waved her tiny
hands and shook her shining black head.

" Tired," she said stubbornly, " I rest."

And the admirers laughed.

Lolo tired? Lolo the vital, the indefatigable?

But rest she did while the others glided and
IK>inted heel-and-toe, rested quietly with her small
hands folded in her scarlet lap — and never once
did she look across toward the door.

And then the music stopped, the crowds drifted
to the benches, and Doc Tackert was tuning his
fiddle to another key.

He took another sip from the tray, tucked the
fiddle in his neck and began abruptly to play — and
no one called this number.

Wild, swift, beautiful music it was, Spanish to
the core.

It lilted and swung and at r^ular intervals
there came a thrum of the bass that sounded like
the stroke of a foot upon the fioor. And then.

94 VAL OP PARADISE

softly, swiftly, like a leaf before a wind, Lolo San-
chez came drifting down the floor alone. From
somewhere as if by magic she had drawn a pair of
castanets, and these b^an to snap and click as
her hands rose above her head.

Ah, she was a beautiful thing! Young, slim,
small, graceful as a gazelle, her lithe body bent
and swayed, whirled and dipped and circled, like
a flame in the breeze.

The wide skirt of scarlet and black that hung
tight about her slim knees was cunningly plaited,
so that, with each dip and swirl, it spread at the
bottom like a great inverted blossom, blazingly
striped with the striking colours. She had drawn
a black lace scarf, fine as a cobweb, from a hidden
pocket, and this hung over one shoulder, its other
end caught in her fingers with the castanets, a
whirling, floating cloud of shadow that played
around her little head with magic.

Turning, bending, floating, she came down the
open floor dancing in such perfect time that never
once did old Doc Tackert have to slur a note to
match her, and with each thrum of the bass her
tiny foot struck sharp against the boards, like a
drum among the strings.

Onlookers ceased to smile and watched in open
wonder. This girl was brave and she dared greatly,
for only an expert could take a floor away from the
crowd and " get away with it.'^ But she got away
with it entirely.

^^ Great jumpin' bobcats ! " said a man softly, as

'A RUSTLER'S HAND 95

she passed, "that there's dancing boys, now I'm
here to tell you ! "

The little ears under the banded hair caught the
praise but Lolo did not smile.

She was after bigger game than admiring com-
ment.

Stamp— whirl — bend — hands waving, castanets
clicking, she went down the long room, circled its
farther end and came drifting up along the other
side. Necks were craned, feet drawn back to give
her room, for she was dancing close. And then,
suddenly it seemed, she was opposite Velantrie
where he stood beside the door.

Out to the centre she went as if she spurned the
crowd, then swift as a winged thing she darted
toward him, threw back her little head, smiled
straight in his eyes and held out her hands, palms
up.

It was a challenge, direct, daring, pretty.

For one second the man hesitated. Then he
tossed his broad hat to those behind, sprang for-
ward and caught those outstretched hands.

Lolo's eyes were liquid light as she drew him into
the clear, snatched her hands away, tossed them
above her head, and began to dance in earnest. The
stranger, too, began to dance, and those who
watched saw instantly that the girl had made no
false choice of partners. He placed a hand on his
belted hip, raised the other to touch her clicking
fingers now and again, and he, too, swayed and
dipped and circled, though in a lesser fashion, to

&6 VAL OP PAEAMSE

give backgroond to her brilliance, the subtle and
perfect accompaniment to a wonderful perform-
ance.

Lolo was a rose in the night, a wind in the twi-
light, a laugh and a jest and a challenge. Velan^
trie, the stranger, was a young tree in a storm, a
cloud hard blown by winds, and the thunder of his
booted heels rolled under the lightning of the casta-
nets.

" Great snakes ! '^ said Perly, softly, ** ain't that
amazin'?''

He spoke to nobody in particular, but the blond
boy who stood beside him cleared his throat as if
with an effort and Val Hannon on the other side
glanced up. The boy's face was pale as milk and
his blue eyes were narrowed to cold points.

Down the room and back again went the two.
Lolo was all about Velantrie, coaxing, spuming,
challenging, and all the while her little face was
full of light that shone for all to see.

If she had made secret love to him in some dusky
bower it could have had no more appeal, for Lolo
was playing for high stakes herself this time. Lit-
tle she cared for the watching eyes. In the blue
eyes of this man, smiling above her, she longed to
see awaken the look that she knew so well, the
quick, longing Took of the coming lover, and she
used her sweetest magic — magic of slumbrous
glance, of parted scarlet lips, of gay little head
4)ack-tipped. Wilder, swifter, became the music,
for Old Doc, artist himself, knew well that she

/

/

A RUSTLER'S HAND 9T

could not long hold out at that pace, and prepared
for the climax. Lolo knew the tone and prepared
herself.

As if by artless chance she drew the figare grace-
fully toward the far side of the floor, directly be-
fore the blond boy, and she was utterly irresistible.
Butterflies in the breeze, stars that glittered, fires
at night — she was all of them, and men's pulses
throbbed drunkenly to behold her.

And then, as the music rose to one last sweet
keening, she fled straight to Velantrie, sank back-
ward in his reaching arm, and held up her flower
face toward him, unmistakable in its intent, its
invitation.

Half under her spell the man hesitated a fraction
of a second. The perfect action of the steps and the
music lost its first beat in that second's wait. Lolo's
face glowed deeper — ^and Velantrie bent

" By ! " came a choking whisper as the blond

boy, grey as ashes and cold, reached to his
hip.

There was a flash of metal, a step forward — ^and
in that second Val Hannon beside him dropped a
lightning-quick hand on his shoulder and swung
him round in action — as she had so often swung
her dad. There was an oath, a shot that went wild
and landed in Hunnewell's tray on the platform's
edge across the room, and Velantrie, arrested half-
way to Lolo's siren lips, looked straight past the
boy and into the blazing black ^es of the girl who
had saved his life.

98 VAL OP PARADISE

For one sharp moment the tension held.

Then Velantrie slowly straightened up and Lolo
slipped from his arm^ forgotten as she had forgot-
ten the blond boy. He stood still, breathing hard,
his blue eyes fastened on Val's face, a frown be-
tween them.

From all sides men crowded in, pushed between
and hustled the boy away, while from that other
side of the room Velantrie's followers came like a
bolt, solid packed, their faces aflame and keen,
their hands on their guns, ready.

" Steady, boys," said Vdantrie, " there's nothing
wrong."

Then he made one stride to Val, reached out a
hand and smiled. It was the brilliant lighting of
his face, like fire behind a curtain, that was his
chiefest charm.

'^ I've had many a close call," he said simply,
^^and have done some sharp tricks to beat them
myself, but I never saw a prettier piece of work
than that. The quick thought, the quick action —
they were like a man, a keen man, used to desperate
chances, and I never saw a woman before who could
think and act like that. If you knew me," he fin-
ished frankly, ^^ perhaps you would not take my
hand. But I want to thank you."

Gravely Val looked full into his brilliant eyes.
The light and the laughter of the earlier night were
gone from her face, why she could not have told to
save her life, yet it was not because of the near
tragedy, that she knew.

A RUSTLER'S HAND 99

"Yes," she said as simply, "I will take your
hand."

And her firm brown fingers closed around his in
a strong clasp. The smile died on the man's face
and he looked into hers for another long moment.

Then he loosed her hand and turned away.

" I shall not forget/' he said.

Instantly his men c[losed about him, they
marched across the floor among the crowd which
fell back from them, filed compactly out the door
and were gone.

The celebration was over in Santa Leandra. Dim
shapes rode through the dust and the cool starlight
that presaged the dawn^ and the denizens of the
rangdand scattered for another year.

In silence mostly the groups drew apart.

Perly took Val to the Hudson House to change
into her riding clothes, waited until she appeared,
and escorted her to the corrals where Briston had
the horses ready and waiting.

'As the east brightened dimly they left Santa
Leandra and rode out on the open plain.

It was characteristic of the bunch from Paradise
that no one spoke of the occurrence in the dance
hall.

It was mid-morning when they rode into Para-
dise, and far off Val shaded her eyes with her hand
and searched the familiar place.

" Boys,'^ she said at last, " there's something
wrong at home. The riders are all in and hanging

9936'79A

100 7AL OF PABADIBE

Tonnd the corrals. There's dad — ^he's waiting for

There was something wrong at Paradise, indeed.

John Hannon met them at the comer of the
great house and his face bore signs of strain. His
dark eyes were cold and narrow.

** Dad," said the girl straightly, " what's up? '*

*^'A lot," he answered grimly, ^^this damn
countryll say no more that John Hannon's magic
works— that he don't lose no stock."

Val's hands on the iK>mmel suddenly gripped
hard.

"What?" she said, "come on. .What's hap-
pened?"

" Bustlers," he said, " at last. Th' Bedstar's
gone."

Slowly she slid out of her saddla Slowly the
colour drained from her dusky cheeks, leaving
them ashen. She stood for a moment leaning
against Bedcloud, as if her knees had run to water.

Then she went drunkenly toward the broad stone
step and dropped upon it. She covered her face
with her hands and sat still as the dead. She did
not sob and no tears crept through her shaking
Angers. She felt as if a knife had been driven deep
into her heart — she could not breathe and her
throat ached.

John Hannon stood and watched her, his face
working.

" Buck up," he said at last sharply, " are you my
daughter? "

A BUSTLER'S HAND

101

" YeB, air," she answered thickly, ^ yes — sir."

<< Then be a man/'

The girl rose unsteadily and turned her grey
face toward the house — ^but every nerre in her was
crying with her loss.

She felt the wind keening by her face, the slip
and slide of the Bed King's massive shoulders un-
der her, heard the long roll of his drumming hoofs.
She saw his gentle qres, felt his satin cheek on
hers— —

And he was gone — the great king of Paradise was
gone — gone to the Border, into the hands of law-
less men — ^perhaps to the possession of that arch
bandit whose fame was black upon the land — ^the
Black Bustler himself!

"Oh, Bedstar!" she cried inwardly, "Oh, my
king of horses! Bedstar! Oh, Bedstar! ''

CHAPTEB IX

THB LIGHT OF DAWNING FIRES

PARADISE hummed like a hive of bees. Perly
and Siff were all for saddling np and tilting
out, twin Galahads, on Redstar's trail, but
Briston put a stop to that in his sane and quiet
way.

^^ You ain't noways sure that you could get him,
once yuh found him, fer whoever took him knows
all about him, you can bet on that, an' ain't a-takin'
no chances on losin' him. An' furthermore, he
didn't leave no trail."

Which last was very true. Neither Bedstar nor
those who took him had left the faintest trace of
their flight, though the theft had been committed
from the very heart of Paradise itself, from the
small corral behind the big one in which the king
was always locked at night.

"Wrapped his feet," said the boss briefly and
grimly, *^ an' tied his nose, mebby, so's he wouldn't
make no noise."

*.* But fer th' love of Pete, John," said Perly, mis-
erably, " where was them worthless vaqueroa, Job6
an' Arias an' Miguel? An' where were you? "

The boss looked hard at his rider, but the boy's
^es were only earnest and concerned.

" Th' boys was all here — asleep I suppose, though

102

THE LIGHT OF DAWNING FIRES 103

JoB^ was supposed t' be on guard. That's what a
man gets by trustin' his help too damned much."

Jos^y meek and quiet^ his dark eyes downcast,
passed at that moment and heard the biting words,
but his gentle brown face did not change.

" An' as for me," went on John Hannon, '^ I
, slept like a log an' never heard a hoof."

When rustlers struck in the cattle country unrest
came and hovered over that particular rancho, for
the gentry of the Border were known to select the
best ground for operations, and though with Bed-
star's taking the best of Paradise was gone, there
was yet rich picking in the matchless Bed Brood,
and every soul at the ranch, it seemed, was strung
like a wire from that day on.

There were many days thereafter when Val
drooped about the deep rooms like a wilted flower,
sick with the first grief of her life. And Belle Han-
non became the comforter, the martial staff of cour-
age. The sweet and gentle woman was aflame with
anger. All her pride in Hannon supremacy, all her
love for the master of Paradise, were outraged and
aroused.

" Val," she said to the girl, " I know you are suf-
fering with the loss, that you loved Bedstar — ^but
think of your father.

" If you are sick over this what do you think he
feels? He who is so proud, who has been set apart
like, who has been invincible ! While others lost on
every side he has been inviolate. None dared to
strike at Paradise before. Now the invincibility is

SSaBasaKmmsassamaans^Besesam

104 VAL OP PARADISE

broken. He has been insulted like any common
rancher, the thing he prized above all his posses-
sions stolen from his very door ! We must be brave
for his sake, so don't let him see you fret like this.''

And, as always when her mother spoke, Val
pulled herself together and tried to obey. But it
was a hard pull. For days she could not mount a
horse. The levels called to her with a promise of
healing in their majestic spaces, but when she
thought of Dawnlight or Redcloud or Lightning
beneath her in place of the gi*eat red king her heart
sickened.

But she knew she must conquer the feeling
sooner or later, and she began to long for the com-
forting peace of Refugio and Father Hillair^.

So at last, on a golden day when the little winds
were still and soft white clouds floated lazily in the
high blue vault, she saddled the gelding and went
away.

Down across the plains that rimmed the south,
across Arroyo Pecos she went, forded the shallow
Antelope, and saw the Mission walls clear in the
light.

And every step of the way she thought of Bedstar
and how he was wont to sail like a hawk along
these very levels, the miles as naught to him. Never
in his life with them had she known him to tire, not
at the heaviest grill John Hannon had ever given
him.

And so she rode and thought, and presently her
mind went back to Santa Leandra and the races

THE LIGHT OP DAWNING FIRES 105

and the dance. With the dance came once more
thought of the flaming dark girl^ Lolo, and the blue-
eyed stranger with the speaking face where the
spirit glowed like light behind a curtain. Many
times had. she thought of that brilliant glance, of
the mouth with the upturned comers. She felt
again the close grip of his hand, a soft hand, slim
and longy that seemed as vital as a face. Val Han-
non remembered the stranger with a peculiar inter-
est and was glad, very glad, that the bullet meant
for his tall body had been averted by her hand. And
then she rode to the gate of Refugio where Father
Hillair^ stood, though with so strange a trouble on
his face that she forgot her own.

She swung from her saddle to take his hand,
searching his features. And then, over his shabby
shoulder, she looked once more into the face of the
black-haired stranger, for Velantrie stood beside
the table in the padre^a garden.

But Father Hillair^ moved between them and
drew her eyes to his own.

" My daughter," he whispered, " do not mention
loss or trouble here."

Wonderingly Val nodded and followed him in
along the wall while Bonifacio took her rein and
led her horse away.

Many times in his long life had Father Hillair^
stood between two fires, and searched his good
heart for the better thing to do. He stood there
now as he led Val Hannon to face the man at the
table.

106 VAL OP PARADISE

« What vital things might happen from this hour
< — what staring truths slip out to unleash tragedy !

He held the girl's hand and looked at the man,
and his gentle eyes were deep with trouble.

"My son," he said at last, "this is Val Han-
non, the sweetest, purest, truest thing in woman-
flesh I have ever known, except her mother/^

The girl flushed and turned her dark eyes up to
him.

" And this, Val," he said, taking the stranger's
hand to place her own therein, " is Don Velantrie,
stranger to the rangeland, sometime of the Bor-
der."

The two young creatures did not smile, for
gravity seemed to wait upon their meetings. In-
stead they looked into each other's eyes with a
breathless seeming of intensity, and without voli-
tion their hands clasped eagerly.

Father Hillair^, wise in the reading of signs, saw
that look of dawning wonder, and his heart con-
tracted.

"We've met before, padre/' said Velantrie,
quietly, " I am glad to say, for if we hadn't I should
not be here this hour."

And he smiled then, straight down at Val, while
his two blue eyes studied hers, first one and then the
other.

The girl drew her hand away and with a word
of excuse passed on into the house to find Jose-
phina.

Velantrie turned and looked after her.

THE LIGHT OP DAWNING FIRES 107

When she was gone from sight he looked at
Father Hillair^.

'^ Padre,^^ he said gravely, " that's why I came to
Befngio today — to ask you who she was — for she
saved my life at the dance at Santa Leandra."

And he proceeded to tell him of that wild hoar
and its culmination.

^^ It was a splendid action/^ he finished admir^
ingly, ^^ swift and keen and timed to the second.
If she were a man she'd be a good rider, a good
loser and a good shot."

^^ She is all three," said the priest, and with a
sigh he gazed out across the spreading plains
toward the south.

Presently he seemed to come back from the in-
finitude of that far gaze and smiled at Velantrie, a
sad crinkling of his features.

"My son," he said, "she is the flower of the
rangeland, glad, wholesome, high-souled, born to
peace and the even way of honour and of happiness.
I'd lay down this old body of mine to keep sor-
row from her sweet heart, tears from her pretty
qres.'^

Velantrie stirred, fiddled with his hat brim on
the table and reached into the pocket of his flannel
shirt for a cigarette.

" Her face has haunted me since I first looked up
and saw her with her hand on the boy's shoulder
and her eyes blazing — haunted me with an odd
familiarity, as if somewhere, sometime, I had seen
those clean-cut features, those narrowed, lighted

108 VAL OP PARADISE

eyes. I have puzzled oyer it ever since, padre.
Where have I seen this girl? "

"You have not seen her," said Father Hillair^
quickly, " for I have known her from her birth and
she has never been beyond Santa Leandra to the
north and west, a day's ride south. And yon are
new to this country. You have never seen her, my
son.''

Fond as Father Hillair6 was of the man before
him there was in his voice a subtle note of warning,
and Velantrie caught it instantly. His dark face
flushed and he rose gracefully and held out his
hand.

"I know, padre/' he said straightly, ^^I know.
It is not for Velantrie — ^ sometime of the Border ' —
forsworn to blood — to raise his eyes to such virgin
flesh. And he does not. It is like your Church
door — forbidden. . . . But sometimes the far
sight of it — ^like the Church door — ^brings a certain
wistfulness."

"Then why not change?'' cried the priest
eagerly. " It is never too late ! The Church, the
woman — they both forgive."

But Velantrie shook his black head and his
mouth hardened.

" For me it is," he said, " I have set myself a
task, as you know, and my life is given to it. Not
till I have found and killed "

But with an exclamation Father Hillair^ laid a
hand across his lips, for Val Hannon was coming
down the sanded walk with Maria's baby on her

THE LIGHT OP DAWNING FIRES 109

shoulder. She made a wondrous picture in her slim
youth and her dusky colour^ with the soft look of
uniyersal motherhood drooping the lashes on her
Smiling eyes.

The wfstful look in the stranger's eyes deepened
with a sort of swift sickness and he picked up his
hat.

^' I'll go/' he said gently, but the father shook his
head.

^* Stay until she leaves/' he said desperately^
** we've had little speech together."

Not for all the poor treasures of his humble house
would Father Hillair6 have had Velantrie's whistle
cut the quiet air, have seen The Comet come trot-
ting down beneath the hanging trees.

So Velantrie stood and watched while Val came
and sat in one of the ancient chairs and put the
baby on her knee to play with its rose-leaf fingers
and touch with understanding hands its little
waxen cheeks.

** It's a beautiful baby, padre.^^ she said, wisely
r^arding the infant, " a darling bundle of sweet-
ness. But I think with you that Maria is not so
well. The cough persists."

" I know," said the father anxiously, " and I have
tried all my remedies in vain. She sickens for the
sight of that worthless one for whom she has never
ceased to mourn."

« If I had hold of him," said Val with sudden
swift viciousness, " I'd kill him! "

" My daughter ! " said the priest sharply, and the

110 VAL OF PARADISE

girl blushed. But Velantrie smiled as he dropped
into a chair across the little open space of the
sanded walk.

" Suppose," he said in the low voice that was
sweet with music, "that some one brought him
back sealed, under pain of death, to be good to
Maria and the cherub here? Would that please
you?"

" More than anything in all this world ! " cried
Val, impulsively, " except " ^

But she broke the speech and glanced at Father
Hillair^.

" It would be a holy work," she finished gently,
^* and I should be very glad."

" Then," said Velantrie, still smiling, " it shall be
done. Who is the man, padre, and from where did
he leave this part of the country? "

" It is only a peon from down by Arguenta across
the line by the name of Mesos Pecuento, and he
melted into the west somewhere. It is a heavy
promise you make, my son."

" But one I shall be glad to redeem," answered
Velantrie.

Val looked at him with deep eyes that were sweet
with a new depth and a sort of wonder. This
stranger that she had begun to meet talked quietly
of big deeds and was quick as running waters. She
thought of his acceptance of Lolo's challenge that
night in Santa Lieandra and how swiftly he had
caught her meaning.

But the light in her face darkened a bit at that

THE LIGHT OP DAWNING FIRES 111

memory and somehow she was not so well pleased
with him. There was something about the flam-
ing dark girl that she did not like at all. Her
woman's instinct had recoiled from her in passing
through the dance — and she had dropped her own
red rose in a corner because this unknown girl had
worn one like it in the same manner !

So she played with the baby and listened to the
quiet talk of the two men and the summer day
drowsed toward its close, and the stranger stayed
as if he did not mean to leave.

The gold and amethyst began to sift across the
rangeland and presently she rose and took the child
away to the recesses of the deep house. When she
came back she was ready for the saddle, drawing
on her fringed gloves, her wide hat on her dark
head.

Bonifacio brought Lightning, and Velantrie
looked at him with keen eyes. Always this man
looked at horses. On the range, in the streets of
the scattered towns, everywhere, it was horseflesh
for which he searched untiringly. An expres-
sion of admiration passed across his speaking
face.

'^That is a beautiful horse, Miss Hannon," he
said, " a swift horse, too, I know.'^

Val smiled.

" The swiftest in the country,'^ she said proudly,
** better than Clendenning's Dollar. Better than all
others, except one."

At that slight reference to the lost Redstar her

112 VAL OP PARADISE

features clouded — and Father Hillair^ felt the
sweat start on his flesh.

But she said no more and held out her hand.

" Good-bye, father. I'll come again, soon."

Then she turned and, with an appearance of tim-
idity that sat oddly on Val Hannon, held out the
same hand to Velantrie. Again the man took it
and again the father saw that unconscious eager-
ness in both young faces.

When ^he girl was gone, sailing like a kite in the
winds across the reaches of the green plain, he
wiped his face and the lines seemed to have been
graven a trifle deeper therein, as if he felt a presage
of disaster.

Long he sat that night and talked with Velantrie
in the shadowed garden, while the stars came out
on the velvet sky, and the evening service had been
said, and peace reigned in the wide world of the
rangeland. Velantrie had smoked and waited
while the candles glimmered in the dark interior of
the Mission and the voices of the worshippers came
faintly through the silence, and he bowed his head
instinctively. When the priest had come at last it
was to break a reverie in which the face of Val Han-
non glowed like a live-coal in the dark and troubled
him with its illusive hint of familiarity.

" Where have I seen her? " he asked himself over
and over, " sometime — somewhere — I've seen those
long dark eyes with the crinkles at the corners —
though they were not soft then but hard and bright.
Now, where — and when? ''

THE LIGHT OP DAWNING PIBES 113

And long after he had left the qniet garden and
was riding down the world toward the mystery of
the Border, toward his swift and dangerous life,
that beautiful face continued to haunt him and
Velantrie, careless of women, the reckless, the bit-
ter-hearted toward those who oppressed the help-
less, Velantrie who harried the rich and gave to the
poor with lavish largess, who was hard to catch and
impossible to hold, Velantrie thought deeply of a
woman and was glad that he had looked upon her,
even from afar.

CHAPTER X

VAL CALLS

JOHN HANNON stood in the deep room where
the Indian blankets glowed and held his wife
in the bend of his arm. His face was a
strange mixture of conflicting emotions. A veri-
table sickness of parting sat upon it and his dark
eyes burned upon Belle's sightless face with such a
passion of love as rarely lasts beyond the fires of
youth. But there was in it also a fierce eagerness
to be gone, as when an eagle teeters on the edge of
the escarpment rimming the world and makes ready
for swooping flight.

He kissed her again and again and studied the
curve of her faded cheek, the curls of soft hair at
her temples.

And Belle's expert flngers passed over his fea-
tureSy " reading " his face before departure. When
he was gone she would drop in a chair and weep
like a schoolgirl, but she sped him now like any
Spartan.

**And when, John dear/' she asked anxiously,
" will you be back this time? Will it be as long a
trip as the last one? "

The man raised his eagle's head and looked out
through the window across the plains. What vis-

114

VAL CALLS 115

ions he saw none might know, but his eyes deepened
and glowed and he smoothed her hair absently.

Presently he came back to the moment.

" No," he answered brusquely, " not so long this
time."

Then he kissed her again, motioned to Val to
come and take her with an imperious nod of his
head, put her gently in the girl's arms and was
gone. The two women stood so for a long time,
listening to his going, the sharp quick orders to this
and that one of the servants gathered round in the
patio, the last instructions to Briston, the ring of
Lightning's hoofs on the stones, then the long-roll
of the gallop that took the Boss of Paradise away
into the outer world of which they knew so little.
Then Belle groped for the chair, laid her head on
the near table among the books, and had it out with
herself, while Val stood by helpless to give her com-
fort.

Why, she wondered with a frown, must her dad
make these many trips, long trips and far apart,
coming, maybe once a year and lasting from two to
five weeks? He had made them ever since she could
remember, and he had always looked so at parting,
always her mother had wept.

Oh, well — Belle would be all right in a few days,
would be looking forward to his return, planning
little surprises for him, new arrangements of the
worn furniture, little new touches of curtains and
flowers in earthen jars. And then there was much
to think of beside, — the new litter of puppies under

116 VAL OP PARADISE

the third bam floor, the string of horses Perlj and
SifE were going to break — and she wondered much
about the stranger with the speaking face, and if it
was true that he could, as he promised, bring back
the man whom Maria loved.

Paradise settled into a sort of pleasant lethargy
after the departure of the master. The riders were
out from dawn to dark and the women in the kitch-
ens cooked savoury dishes that scented the drowsy
air, while a high sun sailed in a cloudless sky, and
the voice of Bluewater sang softly in the stillness
with a million subtle notes. Belle Hannon was
already speaking of the time when her husband
should return, and Val spent mai;iy hours rocking
lazily in the gay-fringed hammocks. She was her
old self again in sweetness, in her eager care for all
the creatures of the household and the ranch, but
deep down in her heart she did not cease to mourn
for the vanished Redstar. If her eyes swept down
the long green field where he was wont to graze,
she saw again his regal form. Sometimes at sun-
down she would cup her hands to her lips and, giv-
ing the two keen, long-drawn whistled notes, listen
wistfully as if from somewhere in the far fringes
of the Blind Trail Hills she must catch the fine
faint echo of his ringing answer.

But always the vast silence of the illimitable land
was unbroken, and Briston coming in from the dust
and drouth of a long day's ride would look at her
pityingly. He who had been so long at Paradise,
who had seen the girl grow up and knew the depths

VAL CALLS 117

of her loving heart, knew now how deep and aching
was her grief for the gallant horse.

^^ Valy girl/' he said to her one night sitting idly
in the patio where she swung beside the spring,
** there is an old saying among the Spaniards which
means ' a nail drives out a nail.' The only way for
yon to ease your hurt at Bedstar's loss is to love
another horse. If you'll buck up an' quit that
callin' at th' twilight — ^it gives me th' creeps, Val —
I'll make a trip out when John gets back an' bring
yon th' best an' fastest horse that money can buy.''

Val reached out a hand and laid it on the fore-
man's arm.

She did not know that the steady pulse along that
arm missed one stroke, then went on again at its
accustomed pace.

" Tom," she said tenderly, " you'd go to Purga-
tory for me if need was. I know that. And I love
you for the understanding that is in your heart — a
real he-man's heart, strong and tender and kindly
— and if it would work, I'd say go. But it won't
work, Tom dear. You might bring all the grand
horses in the world and line them up before me —
but I'd still be searching for the keen red face, the
soft and gentle eyes. Bedstar isn't a horse alone —
he's an entity, an individual, a lover and a friend.
Do you think any one could bring me another Tom
Briston and say, * Give him your affection ' ? No.
As there could never be another friend to take
your place, so there could never be another Bed-
star."

118 VAL OP PARADISE

The man was quiet for a time while the big stars
twinkled in the dusky sky and the tiny piping of
insects made a small music in the night. He
smoked and flipped the ashes from his ciga-
rette.

" Well," he said presently, " stop that callin', for
th' love of Pete."

But Val shook her head against the hammock.

" I can't, Tom," she said miserably, " it's just as
if I heard the Bedstar calling — calling— calling,
somewhere when the sun goes down and I'ye got to
answer. It's in me here," she put a quick hand
against her heart, ^^ and must come out. I've got a
strange feeling that he's penned and holden some-
where, and that he's breaking his gallant heart for
me, even as I grieve for him."

"Why, Val," said Briston, "he's only a horse.
More like he's eatin' good red oats somewhere, all
blanketed an' cared for like a prince — ^for whoever
took him knows his worth."

At that the girl sat up and swift anger flushed
her cheeks, set her eyes to sparkling bodefuUy.

" That picture makes me wild ! " she cried, " if
I could see the thief this minute I'd shoot him dead
in his tracks and never turn a hair ! I'm all Han-
non when my own is touched."

Never again did the foreman try to oflfer her
comfort.

She went about as usual and to all outward pur-
poses had regained her gay spirits — ^but when she
called at dusk Briston knew what was in her heart

VAL CALLS 119

of grief and uneasiness and savage hatred of the
unknown thief.

The days passed and the master had been gone
a fortnight when one day Boyce Clendenning rode
in on Dollar.

Val, seeing him from afar, met him in the patio
.with smiles, all freshly clad in a starched print
dress. She thought, like Perly, that this handsome
and successful man was overly confident in his
quiet way, and her father's outspoken preference
for him was in a way against him — for what girl
ever finds entirely right the man she thinks her
father favours for her hand? — and yet in honest
fairness she must accord him respect. She did not
dislike him, either, when it came down to cases, for
Boyce Clendenning was very much a man in a land
where men must be all of that to prosper.

" Hello, Boyce," she greeted him, laying an ad-
miring hand on Dollar's silver shoulder, ^^ this is a
treat — you coming so far to see us. Or were you
going by? "

^^ Hardly," said the man, swinging down to take
off his hat and extend his hand, ^^ I came because I
wanted to."

He certainly was a handsome chap, and no mis-
take, thought Val. Thick blond hair waved up
and back from a keen and open face where the
" smartest " eyes she had ever seen smiled directly
into hers. If this man told one he'd put a dime on
a stone at the world's rim on a certain date, Val
felt that one could go there in all confidence, and

020 VAL OF PARADISE

the coin would be where he had promised. That
was her inner way of cataloguing him.

And yet, there was lacking something to make
him rise above the level of handsome men in gen-
eral — she didn't quite know what it was. Perhaps
— ^ah — ^it was that his hair was not black, now—*
that his eyes, though blue as the summer heavens,
were not full of sparkle — that his face did not
shine with reckless spirit, like light behind a cur-
tain.

Already, Val Hannon, innocently and uncon-
sciously, was comparing men to the mysterious
stranger whom Father Hillair^ had not deigned
to explain further than as ^^ Velantrie, sometime of
the Border."

Velantrie — the wind, the storm, the lightning,
the summer rain and the sunlight — ^the quick, the
gentle — all these had Val read into his speaking
face, and she was right.

As she led Clendenning into the depths of the
cool old room Belle Hannon rose with the manner
of a duchess and smiled toward the sound of their
approach. The man had heard of John Hannon's
blind wife — who in the rangeland had not? — ^but he
had never seen her. Now he looked at the delicate
beauty of her face, its quick, receptive intelligence^
its high mark of character, and knew why her
daughter was as far above the other girls of the
country as the clouds above the grass.

He took Belle's hands, both of them, with a sud-
den pleasant liking which communicated itself in-

VAL CALLS 121

Btantly to the vibrant brain behind the hands, and
the two were friends at once.

"This is Boyce Clendenning, Belle," said Val,
and the man felt a strange surprise at the girFs
use of her mother's first name. He was to learn
that that was one of their playful intimacies which
made the friendship of this mother and daughter
so rare and so perfect.

" I know," said Mrs. Hannon, " you are the man
John Hannon likes above all others among the
ranchers, therefore you are good and worthy of
regard. I shall like you, too."

Glendenning laughed, tossed his hat away and
sat down to a long and comfortable visit.

He talked of books and music and the blind
woman glowed like a candle under frosted glass, for
she greatly loved these things. Shut forever in the
circle of her dusky rooms her fine mind had closed
around these magic gifts to the world at large and
she had found them good and satisfying. Her hus-
band had always brought her books when he came
back from the outside places and it had been Val's
pleasure and duty to read them to her.

So Glendenning found her a pleasant field of
thought and introspection, touched with a ligiit-
flome humour. She played her nameless tunes for
him and he listened in content, his quiet eyes on her
daughter's face.

But finally the conversation drifted, as all speech
must in the rangeland, to cattle and finally to rus-
tlers.

122 VAL OF PAEADISE

" I suppose you've heard that the Flying Y's Kag
trouble? " he asked idly.

" No," said Val at once. " What? ''

" Lost eighty head of fat steers ready for the driv-
ing."

" Good gracious ! How? "

"Rustlers again. Drove them through the
Needle's Eye into the Blind Trails. Trail was
broad as daylight up to the face of the cliflf, then ot
course it narrowed and was lost on the rock, for the
pass into the hills is so narrow that only two steers
can enter at the same time. The owners trailed
their cattle there — ^to face two rifles sticking out on
either side of the pass, a perfect guard. No man's
fool enough to deliberately give his life for a bunch
of steers, so they went quietly back to the ranch.
But the country's buzzing, you bet, and I'm with it
heart and soul. I tell you something's got to be
done to discourage these open raids, or we cattle-
men might as well give up the game. There's little
enough profit for the year's work as it is, and when
that is lifted by a bunch of thieves it takes the heart
out of us."

Val's dark eyes flashed, for she thought of her own
loss, word of which had been noised about the coun-
try.

" I'm with you, too," she said bitterly, " heart
and soul. If the ranchers ride on the rustlers'
trail I want to go along. I'd like to kill the man
that took the Bedstar."

**It's coming, sooner or later, that ride^" an-

YAL CALLB 123

swered Clendenning. " It must come, or we laj
down our hands, beaten. I've been talking to the
Attison boys and Quinlan and they all favour or-
ganization and short shrift for the victims we may
catch with the goods. It looks like the work of the
Black Bustler, that clever lifter whom none meet
and but few have ever glimpsed — the smooth, silent
chap who works like a machine, with neatness and
precision, and rides the fastest horse ever seen in
these parts. There are some wonderful stories afloat
about that horse — a great bay horse, tall and high-
withered, seventeen hands they say, and so fast
that those who have caught a far glimpse of him say
it runs like a super-horse. There is one yarn on
the Border that says a posse had the Black Bustler
in sight once for seven hours, that its horses, the
pick of that part of the country, dropped out one
by one, and that at the last the Black Bustler, ris-
ing in his stirrups, waved a hand above his head
and ran away from the jaded bunch so fast that
they could not believe their eyes. It must be some
horse, that. I'd like to see it."

As he talked Val Hannon's eyes became wide,
dark pools of retrospection.

" My land ! " she said softly, " I believe I've seen
that horse — ^from the top of Mesa Grande one day
at sundown. I had ridden the Bedstar up and was
sitting on the rim, looking across the ranges, when
a band of men came out of the north up Santa
Leandra way, and one did ride a wonderful
horse — ^a long red horse that lay down and ran

124 VAL OF PABADISE

for all the world like Bedstar himself! Amd the
rider rose in Mb stirrups and waved his hat to
me!''

** Did he wear a black mask? " asked Clenden-
nitag, quickly.

" Why, I couldn't say. He was far and away too
far off for me to see his face. I only got the gen-
eral outline and colour — ^and that mighty seeming
of speed.''

" It might have been. There is a whisper about
that he has been in Santa Leandra several times,
but nobody cares to question the Black Bustler.
Well, I think we'll question him some day — at the
end of a rope. It will be a man-size job, all right,
for he is both painstaking and thorough in his
methods. The owners of the Flying Y went back
to the pass two days later — ^but they came away
again, for there were still two rifles guarding the
gate into the hills."

" It's too bad John isn't here," said Belle Han-
non, **for he'd be with you, I know. He stands
for right and order squarely and he's sore, sore with'
the loss of Bedstar."

^^That is enough to make any one sore," said
Clendenning, gracefully, "for the Bedstar, I'm
sorry to say as Dollar's master, is the best horse this
country ever saw. I know this, though I've never
seen him matched. But if Lightning could beat
Dollar, I know that the King of Hannon's Bed
Brood is matchless."

'Jkn hour later he took his leave and the two

VAL CALLS 125

women sped him from the patio where the sweet
spring talked in the stiilness.

^^Valy" said Belle Hannon, quietly, ^^I'm with
your dad. I favour Boyce Clendenning. He is hon-
esty straight and of fixed purpose. If he sets out to
catch the Black Bustler, he'll get him sooner or
later. If he promises to love, cherish and protect a
woman, hell do so till he dies."

And she did not know with what utter prophecy
she spoke.

Val laughed, a ringing peal, and shook * her
shoulder playfully.

** John Hannon had better be getting back," she
said lightly, ** or his wif e'll be falling in love with
his best friend."

The riders were coming in with rattle of spur
and bit chain, the red yells were beginning to sift
down from the blue infinitude above, and the
long twilight would soon be falling over Para-
dise.

Val, standing alone in the patio after Belle had
gone indoors, looked down across the empty fields,
for the Bed Brood grazed no more without a guard,
and a sigh lifted her slim breast. She felt the de-
sire that came with eventide to cup her hands to
her lips and send out on the quiet air the two long
notes that were wont to bring the king sailing to
her up the long levels. She tried to stifie it, to hold
it down, but it would not be denied. It seemed to
her that she could hear the Bedstar, faint and far
away, calling, calling from the east. Always from

126

VAL OP PABADISE

the east where the Blind Trail Hills rose into the
turquoise sky.

She threw back her head and answered, high and
shrill, and Briston, riding down from the north,
heard that call and shiyered.

CHAPTER XI

THB LUBE OF THE PADRE^S GARDEN

TQEBE was a time after Glendenning's visit
when nothing happened to stir the quiet life
at the ranch. Val talked with the riders
abottt the trouble at the Flying Y and Briston had
little to say.

In fact there was an unostentatious reticence in
their speech about the whole affair. She did not
know that every man-jack of them had been filled
with a vague dismay over the incident of the dance
hall at Santa Leandra, nor that they had listened
to faint whispers concerning the armed strangers.

"Holy smoke!" said Perly the loquacious, "if
that there Velantrie was th' Black Rustler an' our
.Val saved his rotten hide, her name'U be all over
this country an' I see where this bunch'U do a lot
of fightin'."

" Don't get excited/' counselled Briston, " there's
a lot o' men ridin' these ranges, comin' an' goin',
an' there ain't nothin' bqrond ordinary t' fix that
name to Velantrie that I can see. True, he's got a
bunch of men with him, an' I'll say that some of
them don't look like no mama's angel children, but
that ain't here nor there. Th' Border's restless an'
there's many a bunch ridin' on its own affairs.
Let's keep our shirts on/"

127

128 VAL OP PAEADISE

But nevertheless when next he rode to the dis-
tant railroad shanty-town he heard the tale of the
Santa Leandra affair, garbled out of all semblance
to the truth, and, true to Perly's prophecy, he,
Briston, the coolest of all the riders at Paradise,
had ^^ one peach of a fracas " with a stranger from
the south in the Silvershine Saloon.

Val heard nothing of this, for the boys kept it
from her carefully, and Father Hillair^, who had
all the gossip of the rangeland brought to his hos-
pitable doors, kept it securely in his wise old
head.

John Hannon did not return as soon as they had
expected him, and time dragged a little. Val rode
to the Mission many times, but never again did she
encounter a tall stranger in the dry garden, and
though she drew the talk artlessly to this stranger
a time or two, Father Hillair^ was non-communica-
tive and she learned no more about him.

She helped the boys with the breaking of the new
string of horses, for John Hannon's daughter was
better than a lot of men at that, and her dusky skin
burned a tawnier shade in the sun, while her cheeks
were like roses in the sunset. She played her games
in the patio with the shrieking brown babies and
read to Belle the new books that Boyce Clenden-
ning sent. But sometimes she would stop and look
away toward the south whence had come the man
with the vital eyes, and see again his smiling face
in Father Hillair^'s garden.

" I wonder," thought the girl pensively, ** why he

THE LUBE OF THE PADRE'S OABDBN 129

don't seem like any one dse I ever saw. He — ^he's
different, somehow."

The boss had been gone five weeks. August was
blazing on the rangeland. The heavens were high
and hard with heat and the sun shone continually.
But always at dusk there came out of the south the
little cool wind that whispered along the levels,
and the marvellous colours sifted down from infini-
tude.

And then one day, Val, riding aimlessly far down
Arroyo Pecos way, came up from the cool shade of
the ford on Little Antelope, and face to face with
two men — ^Velantrie on a big white horse and a
slim dark Mexican with a sullen face.

Instantly Velantrie's face lighted with the smile
she had not forgotten, and his broad hat came off
with a graceful sweep

^^ Miss Hannon ! '' he cried, and it was well for
Father Hillair^'s peace of mind that he could not
see the look of sudden joy that flashed between
them.

"Mr. Velantrie!" mimicked the girl with a
laugh, " it's been long since we met in the padre^s
garden."

" Has it? " said the man eagerly and simply, and
Yal blushed.

" Hasn't it? " she asked honestly.

" Lord — ^yes," said Velantrie, softly.

For a moment th^ were silent, looking at each
other with the age-old wonder that comes once in
every life< Then the man thought quickly and

130 YAL OF PABADISE

sharply of the Church door — and the woman — ^and
became on the instant the indifferent, smiling
stranger.

Yal saw the change and became grave herself.

Velantrie turned to the rider beside him, a slim,
good-looking youth, scarce more than a boy, and
waved an eloquent hand.

" Let me present Sefior Mesos Pecuento,^' he said
gently, " of down Arguenta way, bound for the Mis-
sion to work for Father Hillair^ and, incidentally,
for wedlock in the chapel."

Yal Hannon blushed again, but the look she
flashed Yelantrie was eloquent of gratitude and
gladness and admiration for so successful a quest.

They spoke for a few moments more, but the
spontaneity was gone from their meeting, and pres-
ently the strangers rode into the Antelope to
emerge to the sight of the distant Mission gleaming
palely in the light, while Yal Hannon touched Bed-
cloud and went on toward the south.

Yelantrie, strong on the bit of his own desires,
went straight to his destination, but somehow this
day he had little taste for discourse with his friend
of cassock and rosary, and his stay in the garden
was short — ^barely long enough to see Maria fling
herself and the baby into the boy^s arms — ^which
opened eagerly enough when he beheld the two —
and to grip the priest's hand.

"Stay, my son," said Father Hillair^ earnestly,
*' you are a bringer of joy. Stay a while and share
It."

THE LURE OF THE PADRE'S GARDEN 131

But the other shook his head.

" I think, padre/^ he said, " that I shall come but
little more to this country. Perhaps no more."

The old man looked at him keenly.

" Why? '' he asked simply.

^ Because it is not well that I should."

Father Hillair^ sighed.

" No," he said sadly, " it is not well."

Velantrie fiddled with his hat brim.

"You know the speech we had one day — con-
cerning— ah — ^the Church door? "

" I know."

" It draws, padre" said the man gently, " it and
— ^the things it stands for. I'll be better away."

Father Hillair^'s old eyes went dim with a sud-
den mist. He felt for a tragic second the useless-
ness of all human effort, the pity of the human
heart, erring and lost, groping without the light,
bound to its fleshpots — ^be they sin or love or venge-
ful vows — and refusing all the good that comes
with salvation.

Then the martial spirit that had glorified his life
in this far wilderness rose up in him again and he
laid a hand on the man's shoulder.

" My son," he said, " wherever you are you can-
not escape my prayers. Sooner or later you will
come back — to the Church door."

But Velantrie laughed and seemed to fling away
the pensiveness like a garment with which he was
(done.

" Perhaps," he said recklessly, " when I have f ul«

132 VAL OF PABADISE

filled my destiny. .Will you take me in then — red-
handed? "

^'Aye^'' said Father Hillair6 tensdy with mar-
tial eyes, ^^ the Christ and I.''

" My God ! ^* said Velantrie, sober once more,
^ no wonder we poor riflf-raflE love you — ^the refugees
and I — ^the outcasts and the sinners ! You'd drag
us all to Heaven by your cassock's fringes, cleansed
t^ the surplus of your goodness! Forgive me,
padre/^

And he shook his hand and mounted.

^< This white's a good horse," he said, ^' but I miss
The Comet — ^laid up with a sprained tendon. I
had a wild ride a little time ago, father — a wild
ride even for Velantrie — and there's another
rmnchero down by Moreno cursing my name. Also,
there's a poor peon a hundred miles away who has
a roof over his head and a little band of sheep. But
The Comet paid. He'll be all right again, but I'll
rest him up good."

Then he swung into the saddle, once more wrung
the priest's hand and was gone.

He rode straight back the way he had come and
he was deep in thought as he neared the fringes of
the Little Antelope. Thought that concerned Val
Hannon. Velantrie had known many women, but
none of th^n had come into his life for more thaa
a fleeting touch. He was, as he had told Father Hil-
lair^, a man who mastered himself. He had ridden
away from much that a weaker man would have
stayed for.

THE LUBE OF THE PADRE'S GARDEN 133

Womeii — the kind he could know, whj, they were
only a delusion and a snare. They played small
part in his scheme of things. To the few good ones
he might hare known he had steeled his heart, be*
cause he had no place in his sort of iif e for them.
But thiis girl, this sweet, keen, dark-eyed girl —
why, there was something about her that made him
want to stretch out a timid hand and touch the far-
thest ruffle of her dress, that made him feel like the
dust under her feet. No. Velantrie — " sometime
of the Border " — Lord, how that had stuck in his
mind like a bitter barb ! — Velantrie must not think
of this particular one at all.

Therefore he struck the big white horse with a
heel and rode through the shallow water — and
there, coming slowly along, slouched gracefully in
her saddle, as if she idled on a way she was used to
making at speed, was the girl herself. Val Han-
non for the first time in her life deliberately wait-
ing to cross trails with a man, and as unconscious
of the fact as any child !

At the fringe of the little stream they met face
to face again, and the shadow of the poplars played
over their young faces where the eager light leaped
helplessly.

They drew up by common consent and sat still
for a moment smiling at each other like two chil-
dren — ^Val, the pride of Paradise, and Velantrie^
" sometime of the Border ! "

'^ I want to thank you,'' said the girl simply at
last, ^^ you have brought life to Maria^ I know."

134 VAL OF PARADISE

^^And pleasure to myself," answ^ed the man,
^^ for it has given me great pleasure to do your wilL
It is a gentle will and kindly."

" Father Hillair^, too, will be full of joy over the
erring sheep brought back to his fold, for he had
grieved with and over Maria a deal. .Where did
you find Mesos? "

^^ Not far from his native heath. He was hiding
among the jacals. It was no great thing to find
him."

^' But how did you make him come? " asked the
girl wonderingly.

Yelantrie smiled.

He did not tell her that among the poor Mexi-
cans across the line the name of Yelantrie was
magic, that in many an humble hut it bore a sound
of " deliverer," that it carried hope as well as fear,
and that its owner had merely to speak and his
words, running afar among the peons, were like
riatas creeping on the ground to bring back the
thing they sought.

« Oh," he said, " I told him it would be— better
for his health if he came along quietly."

" Oun-man? " asked Val, laughing.

Instantly Velantrie sobered.

" Not exactly," he said, in his slow soft speech,
" though I might be on occasion."

*^ Yes," said Val, ** I know. I might be^ too. My
dad is."

"Two-gun?" asked Velantrie with interest.

^^ No, one," she answered proudly, " the best and

/

THE LUBE OP THE PADRE'S GARDEN 135

quic^t shot in this country. When rustlers drive
from this range they leave Paradise alone. That is,
until lately .''

yelantrie looked at the brown hand on her pom-
mel.

" Yes/' he said, " I think you might be, also. Are
you like your dad? "

'' Chip off the old block. Look like him, think
like him, act like him."

'^Then he's a mighty quick man, decided and
strong," said Velantrie, admiringly.

** You're dead right he is," said Val, warmly,
^^ John Hannon's the best and biggest man, all ways,
in these parts."

^^like him a lot, I take it?" and the speaker
smiled while his blue eyes searched her features.

"I sure do, and so does Belle. That's my
mother," she explained, " and they're all bound up
in each other."

Never in her life before had she told a stranger,
or any one else, so much about the sheltered life at
Paradise.

^ little silence fell between them and the girl
looked off across the stretches te the south, while
the man looked at her.

The curve of her cheek was lovely as a cloud at
sunset, as soft and tinged with red-gold. The soft
dark hair that kissed her temple was full of moving
curls. The lashes fringing her long dark eyes were
thick as rushes by a watertd place — and she was so
sweet that for once in his life the man beholding

13« VAL OP PABADISE

marrelled at womanly perfection. And she was
good. Lord, Lord ! — how pure and wholesome waef
that keen and open face — how far a cry from those
women he had known! This was the girl he had
dreamed of in those far-off days of his youth, before
— not so far off either by actual count, only four or
five years at best, but it seemed to him that a long
life had intervened — a long, long life of fights and
swift getaways, of desperate chances and wild rides
in the dark — since the black day that had seen the
life go out of a man's eyes and which had made him
— " Velantrie of the Border."

He sighed unconsciously and Val turned quickly.

^ What? " she said, and he flushed with pleasure
at the quick understanding.

" Not a thing on earth," he answered lightly.

Then they fell to talking of the cattle country
and the long dry spell, and Val told him that the
springs were holding out pretty well, and that her
father hoped to driye early and get the best from
the stock he could. And the sun went swiftly down
the heavens and the purple veils began to weave
their magic on the stretches, while they sat beside
the Little Antelope and forgot that Time was, after
the manner of youth since the world began.

" My gracious ! " said Val at last, startled, " it's
getting late! I'll have to run for it now! "

^' Looks like you could do it on this horse," said
Velantrie, admiringly, "I wish I had my own
mount here. I'd like you to see The Comet."

" What's he Uke? "

THE LUBE OP THE PADRE'S GARDEN IST

" I conldn^t describe him. You'd have to see him
to know/'

" I could say the same," said Val, quickly, " for
I said that rustlers never struck at Paradise — until
lately. They took the greatest horse that ever ran
these plains a short time back — and I'd kill the
man who did it like I would a snake ! "

« Rustlers? "

"Yes — they say the Black Rustler himself has
been seen in Santa Leandra this summer, and I
make no doubt it was he who lifted Redstar."

"Redstar," mused Velantrie, "You call him
Redstar? "

" Yes."

" And mine's The Comet. That's a coincidence,
isn't it? Both meaning light — the heavens — a
star."

" Why, so they do ! " cried Val, " and from our
own words they are both great horses. What colour
is this Comet? "

" Deep blood bay."

" With a smoky black cloud across his shoulders,
and dim black dapples shining through? "

The smile faded slowly from the man's face.

" A perfect description," he said, " have you seen
The Comet at Father Hillair^'s when I was there? '*

She shook her head.

" No. I'm telling you of Redstar."

" Well, you might be telling of the other."

" Can he run? " persisted Val.

" Four years back," said Velantrie, ^ he waS

138 VAL OP PAEADISE

within two seconds of the world's record at Ne?^
Orleans — he and another."

a Ties? "

" Ties — and blood brothers."

" I know," cried Val, " for we have a pair like
that — Firebrand and The Flame. We own the Red
Brood, you know, and Bedstar was its king."

" Have you had him long? "

" I grew up on him," said the girl simply, and
thought she spoke the truth, for it had seemed far
back in her short life, that day in spring when the
Boss of Paradise had ridden the red king in.

Velantrie, who had straightened up in his saddle,
relaxed again and drew a deep breath of something
like relief.

He gathered the reins on the white horse's neck.
Val noticed the slim grace of his long fingers. What
was there about this man that she did not notice? —
the brilliance of his eyes, the shape of his fine fore-
head, the sweetness of the lips with the upturned
comers. She looked at him with all the dawning
light of an awakening in her clear eyes, and did not
know it was there for all to see. Velantrie, wise to
womenkind instinctively, caught something of its
radiance and a cold chill went down to his heart.
He actually shuddered in the warm air and his
mouth drew into the close hard line that was known
afar across the Border.

"Wouldn't that be hell!" he thought swiftly
with a feeling of sickness at the pit of his stomach,
"justheU!"

THE LURE OF THE PADRE'S GARDEN 139

The look^ the light in her innocent face, flashed
before him a forecast of what might have been un-
der a happier star. But he had nothing in kind
with innocence, with the happiness that comes from
a clean and honest love — not Velantrie with his gay
and reckless record, his pledged future — a future
wherein there stood, like a black cross on a blood-
red sky, an oath of vengeance to be redeemed, and
then — the inevitable end.

These things he thought, his brooding eyes upon
his pommel. No. This wondrous woman-crea-
ture before him with the light faintly showing in
her dusky eyes must have no part or parcel in the
life she had saved that night at Hunneweirs.

Then he looked up — and encountered those sweet
eyes, deep as evening stars, as pure, saw the red
mouth parted in unconscious beauty, for the girl
sat leaning a little forward drinking in his features
as one drinks unconsciously the wonder of the sun-
set.

Velantrie caught his breath sharply. He drew
the rein and the white horse leaped, ready for in-
stant flight. The man had meant to ride from her
without a backward look. All his life he had mas-
tered himself. He would do it now and kill by one
brutal action the divine thing he saw opening its
eyes to life in the innocent heart of this girl. He
would —

But the strong hand on the rein wavered for
opce, the purpose in his mind flickered like a flame
in wind — and he turned his glance across his shoul-

140 YAL OF PAEADISE

'der. Val had not moved, but the deep eyes had
changed a mere breath, as if a wind touched water
with troubling fingers. Fear was there, far back,
just lifting its head, fear of loss — and the man saw
it.

<^ Damn ! " he said under his breath.

He brought the horse down to quiet.

"Miss Hannon," he said, meaning still to end
ihis new thing here and now, " Miss Hannon ^^

" Yes? " said Val, obediently.

Velantrie swept off his hat and the sweat had
started on his forehead.

" This is my last visit to the rangeland," he said
desperately, " I'm leaving this part of the country.'^

Then did the fear leap out, full-panoplied.

"Why?" breathed Val, straightforwardly.

"Because I must."

" Why? " she asked again.

"Why? — well — perhaps I'm needed down yon-
der," and he waved an arm toward the distant
south.

Val's fingers tightened on the saddle horn.

" Perhaps you're needed here, too," she said sim-
ply, "you seem, somehow, to belong here. I— •
somehow — I like to meet you in the padre^s garden,
to hear you speak."

Poor Val! Many another woman had liked to
hear Velantrie speak, for there was that in this
man's gentle voice which touched the heart of
women — the soft kindliness that made friends for
him among dogs and children, which sounded like

THE LURE OF THE PADRE'S GARDEN 141

bells of doom sometimes to those who harmed the
weak. It had been such a time or two.

There was reason— down across the Border — ^to
call him Don Quixote Velantrie^ good reason.

The man shook his head.

" No," he said, " it is best that I don't ride this
way again. Sometime ask Father Hillair^ — he'll
tell you why."

All the light was gone from the girl's face, a faint
paleness come instead. This man, this tall stranger
with the vital eyes — this youth she had known so
short a time — he would ride away today and she
would never see him again. Suddenly it seemed to
her that it could not be — ^it could not possibly be.
She must see him again. Why, it seemed ages since
that sharp moment in Santa Leandra when she had
looked past the blond boy with the smoking gun in
his hand, and straight into this man's eyes. All
her life the daughter of Paradise had had what she
desired.

Now she reached out a hand, a simple action, as
one man to another, and laid it on his upon the
pommel.

" No," she said straightly, ^^ don't go and come
no more. We are just getting to be friends. I
don't want you to go."

Velantrie caught the honest hand in a clasp that
would have hurt an indoor woman, but Val Hannon
returned it closely.

For a tense moment they sat so, looking deep into
each other's eyes.

142 VAL OF PARADISE

" It is wrong/' said the man at last, " I have no
right to be friends with a giri like you. Not that
my heart; is wrong toward women — that, at least, I
can deny with honesty — ^but I am black with other
sins, Miss Hannon — sins among men/'

Val's look did not change.

" So are lots of men I know," she said simply,
" this country is full of such. But a man's heart
can be made over."

" Lord ! Lord ! " said Velantrie, " I see the
padre^s life-work.

" You, like the good priest, would raise the sinner
on your very heart ! But in my case it cannot be.
There is a reason why Velantrie — ^* sometime of
the Border '—cannot change. Don't trouble about
me. I am well and at peace with myself."

Gently he laid down the hand he had held so
tightly clasped in his.

" But I thank my stars. Miss Hannon, for — ^that
night at Hunnewell's. I told you then I should not
forget. There are some things that are part and
parcel of one's life upon an instant. That moment
there was one. If I go I shall not forget."

" But you won't go," said Val, " not to stay. You
. — will come back — sometimes — ^to the padre's gar-
den?"

Earnest, honest, simple as a child she leaned for-
ward and searched his features — and the man's
heart leaped, thundered at his temples, set a sud-
den tremble in his lips. His blue eyes grew soft
and luminous as summer lights in windows.

THE LURE OF THE PADRE'S GARDEN 143

" My God ! " he whispered softly, *^ you and this
Father Hillair6!"

Val leaned nearer yet, her hand reaching out un-
consciously.

" You will come — sometimes? "

"Yes," said Velantrie, thickly, "sometimes — ^to
the padre's garden. There can be no wrong in look-
ing at your face in the shadow of the Mission walls
• — though God forgive me that I think of either!
Yes — I will come back."

And with a quick and graceful motion, as if with-
out volition, he bent low from his saddle and kissed
that reaching hand.

Then he whirled his horse and was gone toward
the south — and Val Hannon ran Redcloud all the
way to Paradise, while the purple veils draped all
the spaces of the open country and the mesas stood
like ancient ghosts.

There was a wonder on the world, indeed; the
evening stars sang together in the heavens and her
face was bright with ecstasy like the clouds that
fringed the sunset

CHAPTER XII

THB CRY IN THE BLIND TRAIL HILLS

RIMMING the world of the rangeland at the
east the Blind Trail Hills rose stark into the
heavens, their western face a band of ragged
cliffs that shut them in completely. The pass, a
narrow gateway cnt by nature down the sharp es-
carpment, let into their great stone fastnesses those
who cared for any reason to thread their lonely
ways. Mysterious, unbelievably rugged, these hills
spread away to east and north in uncounted miles
of peak and cliff and hidden vale. Sweet streams
watered them, falling with soft music down their
worn and broken faces, while here and there small
glades between the cliffs glowed green with forage
and were starred with flowers.

Far back and to the left, lost in a maze of gulches,
peaks and cafions, there lay between the circling
walls a tiny valley, fair as the fields of Paradise.
Blind cliffs walled it entirely, coming abruptly
down to another natural gateway, like the outside
pass. An emerald carpet clothed its level floor with
verdure, broad trees grew here and there, while
far at the northern end a deep spring of sweet
water lay like a tiny lake amid its fringing flags.

It looked like a bit of Eden set down in this pro-
saic world, innocent of man. But man had found

144

THE CRY IN BLIND TRAIL HILLS 145

it out and left his mark — the solid gate of five slim
saplings set square across the mouthy their ends let
into the living rock itself where flitted slots had
been cut with some sharp instrument. These sap-
lings were strong, straight, and trimmed. A neat
and thorough hand had done the job. They rose in
the pass to a height of some six feet and closed the
glade completely.

They had a sinister look, there in the solitude
between the hiding hills, as if they made of the
lovely glade a prison.

And what was this? A ragged fringe of gnawed
and shining fibre clothing the two top ones from
end to end as with a garment !

And what was that rimming the green floor on
all sides? A narrow trampled path worn to the
dusty earth beneath the grass by running feet that
circled tirelessly the binding walls in an endless
search for freedom!

And what wondrous thing stood yonder, picked
boldly out in the green floor as the long red veils
of the early twilight came waving down the rocks?

A horse — a great red horse, monster tall, mar-
vellously slim, his red satin hide glowing in the
light, the mane on his arching neck a flowing cloud,
the black tail sweeping to his heels a sable plume,
his shoulders dusky with a darker shadow where
the dim black dapples shone ! His great head was
high, beyond the reach of most men, his small ears
were pointed sharply toward the narrow gateway
beyond which lay freedom and all he loved, his soft

146 VAL OP PABADISE

and gentle eyes were sick with longings while the
delicate nostrils that quivered with each breath
were pinched a bit, for the kingly heart beneath the
broad bay breast was fretting itself away.

And as the twilight fell Bedstar the beautiful,
Bedstar the swift, the tender-eyed, the loving,
threw up his head and sent a piercing cry ringing
down the cafions.

He stood like a rock and listened, his nostrils
still, the breath held in his sides, while the echoes
took it up and made a million voices of it.

When the last faint note had died away he called
again, and again he listened, his eager eyes strain-
ing into the distance down the narrow defile. Until
the last red veil had changed to blue and then to
black on the darkening face of the wall, he sent his
cry ringing in the dusk, held his breath and lis-
tened, pointed his ears and spread his thin nostrils
for sound or scent of answer.

Alas ! Alas !

He was far and bye from the homing fields of
Paradise, beyond all sound to carry across the dead-
ening miles, and of all the friends who loved him
there was but one heart that quivered to that silent
call, and it groped in the dull mazes of human mis-
understanding.

CHAPTER XIII

DEEP WATERS

A T Paradise the riders came in and sat down at
J^L the long tables in the dining-room. They
were brown as Indians with the summer's
work but they were neat to a man, their faces shin-
ing with much good soap and water, their hair
smooth with the ministrations of the combs hanging
to their chains beside the looking glasses in the
back veranda. It was evening and the day was
done, and they were full of jest and laughter, ami-
able with the pleasure of work accomplished, a
pleasant place to lounge in.

Of all the merry crew Perly alone was missing,
beside Jos6 and Rosy out with the herd on the
upper range.

Perly had been to Santa Leandra and even now
they could hear him unsaddling in the far corral,
for any one could hear Perly from any reasonable
distance.

" That boy,'^ said Val, smiling from the table's
head where she sat in John Hannon's absence,
" could wake the dead.''

" Right you are, Val," said Dirk, " I've seen him
wake a town that was ready for burial. Ain't you,
rTom? "

** .Well, he ain't to say a dead one himself," an-

147

148 VAL OF PARADISE

swiered the foreman^ " but I like his style. Perly's
worth a dozen fellers I could blow smoke on/' and
he caught the brown fist that rose on either side in
good-natured threat, for there was an affectionate
camaraderie between the foreman of Paradise and
his riders.

And at that moment Perly himself came breezing
in, his face unwashed, his hair sweated on his fore-
head, the broad leather flags of his worn chaps
waving. He stopped in the doorway and looked at
them excitedly.

"Boys," he said, "what you think? Th' men
from th' Flying Y went back to th' pass — an' they
found them guns still stickin' out — two weeks after
th' raid ! They went in — an' them there guns was
blind, propped up on rocks, and reachin' out along
one was th' arm of an old coat stuffed with grass !
That there drive was a one- or two-man trick, an'
it was th' Black Rustler that done it."

" Th' hell you say ! "

"Sure do. An' ain't th' Flyin' Y boys wild!
Eighty head o' steers ready fer drivin' — and a two-
man trick — an' them comin' back from th' pass like
a lot of ninnies scared out by a lay like that ! "

" But they didn't know, Perly," said Briston.
" How'd they know them guns was blind? An' the
Black Rustler ain't to be fooled with. He's killed
too many men along this Border. You know his
fame as a gun-man."

" Well, somethin's goin' to be done this time, or
I miss my guess. Boyce Glendenning's ribbin' up

DEEP WATERS 149

a plan for a ride^ an' when that comes off I think
he'll have his man."

"That's a man-size trick," said Briston, "ain't
no one along th' line been able to do it for five years
now, sheriff or big ranch or single avenger. I'd
have to see it done to believe it."

"Well," said Perly, tnming back to wash up,
" I'm believin' in Boyce. He's a quiet feller, but he
thinks a heap, uses his bean in other words, an' he
don't fly off th' handle. / want t' be in when th'
cattlemen ride."

" Yes," said Val, grimly, " and so do I."

" But you won't," said Briston, " I've heard you
speak like that a time or two, girl, an' I don't want
you to think serious along that line. Loss or no
loss a party like that would be ain't no place for a
woman, an' your dad will sit on you good an'
plenty when he comes home an' hears you
talk."

" I say so, too," said Siff, " this here Val Hannon,
now, she thinks she's next to her dad — that she's
mighty near a rider herself, bound to go every-
wheres we do."

" Oh, — and so you don't want me to ride with you
— ^your high and mighty lordships?" said Val, bri-
dling instantly.

" Anywheres on earth," answered Siff, impertur-
bably, " save an' except where you shouldn't. I'm
with Tom — fer onct."

" Yes — an' only onct," said Briston.

Talk went fast about the rangeland concerning

150 VAL OF PABADISE

this last atrocity of the mysterious raider. Its very
simplicity was an affront^ its boldness and dash an
insult.

The Bar Star, the Circle A, El Rio Rancho, they
were all roused to a keen appreciation of the state
of things, and Boyce Clendenning was talking
quietly of making a stand once and for all.

^^It's a damned sl\ame that cattle can't run in
safety on the open range any longer," he said, " and
no ranch can guard its herds in sufficient strength,
and day and night. It would break up a cattle
king."

But the Border was a wide place, indeed, with a
thousand secret crossings, and it would take con-
certed action, eternal vigilance, and swift signal
service to work out the plan that was beginning to
form.

"But we'll have it," said Clendenning, "we'll
hear and come and ride some of these fine nights —
and we'll lift the shadow of the Black Rustler from
the country — hang it to the Crag Oak as our fath-
ers did Peg Hart in '67. The law of the range has
changed but little since those days — caught with
the goods, convicted. We'll catch the Black Rus-
tler so. We'll be sure, and then we'll act."

And the feeling spread that perhaps Clendenning
could do what he promised.

Val Hannon b^an to sing about the rooms of the
ranch-house as she had not done since the black day
Which had seen the Redstar's loss. Not that she
had forgotten the king. She would never forget

DEEP WATERS 151

him — ^not in a thousand years. Only her own heart
knew the restlessness that gripped her when the
crimson yeils sifted down the long slopes of the
twilight and it seemed that she could hear him
calling — calling from the Blind Trail Hills. But
something within her bade her wait and hold her-
self with patience. Somewhere, deep within her
consciousness, there was a strange, abiding faith
that sometime, somehow, she would hear the long-
roll of his running feet, know the splendour of his
matchless speed again. What it was that prompted
this she could not have told — she felt it, that was
all.

And in the meantime a new glory seemed to sit
upon the summer world, to clothe the heavens with
mystic beauty. For the hand that Velantrie had
leaned from his saddle to kiss was conscious of that
caress in every pulsing vein. The girl's eyes were
sometimes drowsy with that memory, her soft lips
parted with the wonder of it. A fear was in her for
the man's safety in the oblivion of that distant
Border to which he rode, a trembling hope and
eagerness for his return to Father Hillair^'s gar-
den. And she did not know what all these things
portended.

But there was one at Paradise who watched her
with anxious eyes and troubled heart — Briston,
who had seen the girl grow up and loved her in a
half-paternal way.

"There's somethin' new come to her," he told
himself, smoking in the dusk beside the talking

152 VAL OP PAEADISE

spring, " now what tV hell can it be? Where's she
ben to find it? '' and he thought uneasily of that
night at Hunnewell's.

He made a few gentle probes into Val's confi-
dence, but for once in his knowledge of her he got
nowhere, found nothing he wanted or did not want
to know. Unconsciously she was silent, alert,
guarding, as woman has been since time was when
the depths of her heart are stirred. And that those
depths were stirred at last for the first great time,
attested this profound surge within her, this divine
light that changed the world completely.

Val Hannon was her father's daughter. John
Hannon had loved once — and with every fibre of
his heart, brain and body.

She did not know it yet, but every faithful nerve
and pulse within her was awakening to the gentle-
ness and vital charm of the man from Oblivion
whose reckless blue eyes were beginning to hold
such a keen dismay when he looked at her.

And so it was that she rode more often to Refugio
and sat in Father Hillair^'s garden. That sharp
and kindly man studied her with more distress than
did Briston, for he knew a sad deal more.

Maria's joy and her returning health were a deep
happiness to Val. Dusky roses were beginning to
bloom in the wasted cheeks and the troubling cough
was lessening — so wondrous a thing is love! As
for Mesos, he was making himself a good hus-
band, working for the padre among the herds, the
sheep and the horses.

DEEP WATERS 153

The fat cherub seemed to take a hold on his
shiftless heart and Maria to come back to her right-
ful place therein, and all was well with the three*
How much of this was due to natural causes and
propinquity it would have been hard to say — or how
much was due to that yeiled threat of Don Quixote
.Yelantrie of the Border, whom all peons knew, if
not by sight, by the running word !

Yal talked with the women in the kitchens,
played with the brown baby, and lounged in the
deep old chairs in the shadow of the Mission walls,,
but eyer her dark eyes turned down across the
southern plains, and it seemed she listened for the
sound of horse's hoofs.

** My daughter," said Father Hillair^, one day,
" are you happy? "

The long brown orbs flashed up at him with so
swift and tell-tale a light that the wise priest was
answered.

" Yes, father," she said simply, ** I am — ^but for
one thing."

The other sighed.

" You have known me all your life, Val," he said,
'^have I ever advised you wrongly in all that
time? "

" No, father," she said wonderingly.

"Would you listen to me now — if I advised
something that might — ^make you less happy? "

" I should listen and heed you, father, if I were
dead," said the girl gravely.

For a long time Father Hillair^ looked out along

154 .VAL OP PAEADISE

the land, his fingers tapping the worn top of the
table.

Then he sighed again and shook his silver head.

" Ah, well,*^ he murmured, " perhaps 'tis just as
well. As I said once before — ^it is in higher Hands
than miife."

*' Eh?'' queried Val.

" I — was only testing your loyalty, dear child.
I meant nothing."

And then, one day a little later, Velantrie rode
into Jthe garden on the good white horse — ^and he
was doubly answered, for the look that leaped into
Val Hannon's face was the " light that never was
on land or sea " and she rose from her chair and
went to meet the stranger as helplessly as the
needle to the steel.

The man dropped from his saddle to strike a palm
to hers — and for once in their friendship with him
they had both forgotten the padre of Refugio.

When they turned to him the priest saw two
things instantly — the joy of Val, the dawning
struggle of the man.

"Father," said Velantrie, straightly, "I am in
deep waters."

" Yes, my son."

" I merely turn my eyes to the fair shores for a
fleeting comfort — ere I drift out to sea, beyond all
hope."

There was a desperate longing in the words, a
depth and wistfulness, that gripped the old man's
heart

DEEP WATERS 155

He turned from them without a word, pacing the
far end of the garden with his hands behind his
back and his rosary swinging at his knee. Val
Hannon listened to this mystic speech open-lipped,
for she did not understand. Then Velantrie took
her hand for a moment and smiled down at her —
and it was as if she had known him always.

" You did come back ! ^' she said.

"Yes," he answered, "the memory of — Jose-
phina's frijoles — drew me afar."

And they both laughed at the plain delusion,
after the fashion of the young, sat down beside the
table and talked of a thousand lightsome things.
The look in the girl's eyes, eager, true, believing,
was like a hand on the man's heart, drawing out its
truth, but not for a thousand worlds would he have
spoken one serious word this day, have let her
know the consternation there was in his inner soul.

He kept the speech to the commonplace, the
pleasant badinage of friends, and talked of far
places and distant towns — but nothing on earth
could have silenced his blue eyes, nor the tell-tale
tightening of his lips from time to time when their
smile became too soft.

Velantrie was a man who mastered self, and he
meant to do just as he had told the father — ^look
for a short time — he meant to make it short — per-
haps a trip or two more — at the fair green shores
before he drifted out for good and all.

But ah, it was a dear dallying, there in the
padres garden, for every precious moment piled

156 VAL OP PAEADISE

high the load of pain this sweet keen girl would
bear when he came no more — ^and, man-like, he did
not think of that. He thought only of the wondrous
memory he would carry with him into the dark
places of the future.

So he talked with her, there in the shadow of the
Church, his lips curving in the gentle smile that
marked him, his blue eyes sparkling, his long fin-
gers, stained with a thousand cigarettes, fiddling
with the hat that hung on his knee. His keen face
was full of expression. He played with fire, that
he knew, and for the first time in his life was due
to be burned thereby, but the cost of the joy he felt
this moment, be it what it would, would be gladly
paid in his heart's blood of longing when he came
no more to the rangeland.

He was a strong man, this slim brown chap with
the mysterious record, strong and very quietly as-
sured. There were lines in his handsome face which
showed that he would set him a goal and cleave to
it, come what might. So now he took the cup that
the moment held out to him, drank it to the last
sweet drop— and knew that it held everlasting re-
gret for him, the unquiet of a thousand nights un-
der alien stars — if he should live so long. But
then — there was no surety that Velantrie would
live from any dawn to any dark.

So— he looked into Val Hannon's eyes, and hia
own blue ones said "I love you" with every
glance, while his lips spoke trifles and laughing
jests.

DEEP WATERS

157

At last he rose and took his leave and the two in
the garden watched him go.

As he swung from the gate Val's eyes b^ged
mutely " You will come back? " and he hesitated —
then flashed " I will."

Father Hillair^ stood in the gate and sadness sat
upon him like a garment, and the girl touched him
twice before he turned.

" What is it, father? " she asked anxiously. But
he shook his head again.

^^ Nothing that I can speak of," he said.

And all the way home to Paradise she troubled
over the vague speech — what time she could take
from the glowing dreams that peopled the high
heavens and covered the world with light.

CHAPTER XIV

THB STIRRING TALK

JOHN HANNON came back to Paradise. In the
gold and crimson lightwash of a summer's
dusk they heard the far, faint sound of horse's
hoofs, and Belle, whose hearing was marvellously
acute, caught it first.

She rose from a chair in the shaded patio and
held out a hand for silence.

^^Hush!'' she said, and Val and Briston, who
were talking, became quiet. Perly's cigarette
trailed off his under lip as he listened, for they
all acknowledged Belle's superior ears.

"It — " she strained her every faculty for a
tense second, then her face seemed to break in a
thousand places to let her spirit flash out — "it's
Lightning's stride ! " she cried, " it's John ! "

If she had said " It is the Millennium ! " herself a
martyr hanging on a Roman cross, the words could
have held no more of glory.

" Ah! " she breathed again, " It's John! "

And it was John — John Hannon in the flesh, who
rode straight to the patio and, swinging stiffly from
his saddle, caught her to his breast. He neither
looked at nor spoke to any other for a time — ^he hdd
this woman whom he loved upon his heart and said

168

THE STIRRING TALK 159

no word to any. Between these two none were
needed.

Bat Belle's hands trembled on his shoulders and
her transfigured face was white as milk. She clung
against him with all her strength and the breath
fluttered on her lips with ecstasy. And presently
the bosB swung her around in the bend of his arm
and held out a hand to the foreman.

" Well," he said pleasantly, *' how's everything? ''

" Fine," said Briston, gripping the outstretched
hand, ^^fine as silk! Olad you're back, though,
John."

With a long sweep of his huge arm John Hannon
caught hig daughter and brought her in against him
on the other side.

Val, contained as himself, but smiling with deep
joy, laid her soft fingers over his big hand and
gripped it hard. The long dark eyes she turned up
to him were his own to the last sweep of lash, the
last crinkle that attended them in laughter.

^^ It's been a long time, old man," she said affec-
tionately, " and your women have been true to you.
They've watched the trails at dawn and dusk —
they've fairly ached to see your face, sometimes."

With one of the rare, the very rare, caresses that
passed between them John Hannon bent and kissed
his daughter's cheek. Then he turned to the riders
who came clumping in along the stone flags, shak-
ing hands and demanding news of the ranch.

To Jos6, who came quietly reaching for Light-
ning's rein, he gave a pointed look and a sharp

160 . VAL OP PAEADISE

word of direction. It was needed, for the beautiful
gelding stood in the dusk with hanging head And
dull eyes, his erstwhile sleek coat caked with dust
and cut by trickling sweat. His slim legs trembled
with fatigue, his nostrils shook with the heavy
breaths that rattled in his sides.

"Great Pete, John," said Perly, wondftringly,
" but youVe put th^ red boy through ! TV Black
Bustler ben chasin' you? "

The boss laughed and ran a hand through his
thick grey hair, while he tossed his heavy hat
away.

" Not exactly, but I was in a hurry to get home.
Ben gone long enough — eh, Belle, my girl? "

" Oh, John ! " said Belle, and the word was elo-
quent.

"An' as I said once before," he continued,
"there's somethin' by-ordinary in that Idghtnin'
horse. I'd stake a lot on him if I was bein' chased,
for he's got th' wind an' th' stayin' stuff of th' Bed-
star himself, if not the speed. I'd stake a lot on
him."

Then his women laid hold on the Boss of Para-
dise and carried him into the depths of the cool old
house and there was much running of feet, and
swift orders and the stir of deft hands in the
kitchen, while a white cloth was laid on a little
table in the living-room, for they must needs feed
him at once and bring him a basin of water and a
fresh towel. Belle opened the collar of his shirt
with her own hands and brushed the hair from his

THE STIRRING TALK 161

forehead and her soft voice was busy with the do-
ings of their little world all the while.

Val looked on with smiling eyes and she was very
glad indeed. It was a wonderful world, she thought
to herself, and Paradise was the most wonderful
spot in it — unless — unless it was Father Hillair^'s
garden beneath the Mission walls.

While the master ate with a hearty zest they told
him all that had happened in his absence, even to
the raid of the Flying Y and the driving of the
eighty fat steers into the Blind Trail Hills, of the
dummies that had guarded the pass, and of the
slow rage of the cattlemen against the Black
Rustler.

John Hannon listened attentively.

" Boyce Clendenning's at the head of things,^
said Belle, "and what that man undertakes he'll
well-nigh put through. I've met him, John — he was
here one day — and I hold with you concerning him.
He's a real man and no mistake."

" Yes," said Val, humorously, " it's a mighty good
thing you're home, dad. I had to hold her to keep
her from following him off. She almost fell in love
with Boyce."

"Why, you story teller!" cried Belle, indig-
nantly under her own laughter, " John, don't listen
to this young upstart. But you know what you have
always told me of this boy — of his strength and
earnestness. And I think you are right. He is
strong and he is very determined. I saw that about
this Black Rustler affair. You mark my words that

162 VAL OF PAEADISE

if the Rustler ever hits this country again, Boyce
Clendenning will get him."

John Hannon's dark eyes dropped to the white
table before him and neither woman saw or felt the
sudden flame of fire that flared in them. It was a
momentary flash of mad excitement, such as some-
times shows in the eyes of a drunkard or a lunatic.
If John Hannon wanted the Black Rustler caught
for any reason, personal or general, he might have
felt the portent of the woman's speech, have seen
the vision of its fulfilment.

The talk drifted to other things and presently
Fanita came soft-footed to remove the tablecloth,
while Belle went to the old piano, and the master
sank back in his own deep chair with his pipe be-
tween his lips. His eyes rested on his wife's face
as if they would devour it feature by feature, while
he listened in ineffable content. He was very proud,
this master of the rancho, proud of his holdings, of
the deep old house and what it sheltered. Proud
of this woman whose heart and soul were so fine
and white, proud of the daughter she had given him,
flesh of her flesh and soul of her soul. Val Hannon
was the best thing in the rangeland in point of in-
tellect, character and body. Beauty of brain,
beauty of heart, beauty of vital young form, these
she had abundantly and her father gloried in her
superiority more than any one living knew. His
pride centred in her more than in any other of his
possessions. Not his love — that reached its pinna-
cle in Belle.

THE STIRRING TALK 163

But Val, the Pride of Paradise — ah, she was well
worth the thrill of possessed supremacy that stirred
this strange man's heart at beholding her. His
daughter, his horses, his range and his fields — ^his
deep blue springs and his countless cattle — they
filled him with so fierce a joy that his eagle eyes
were wont to fire at thought of them.

The best in its line — that must John Hannon
have or burn with humiliation. And that did his
women believe in. They believed in him, first and
foremost, then in his kingly right and standing in
the cattle country. They believed in Hannon supre-
macy down to the ground, unconsciously, simply,
because he stood for it. Belle believed in it blindly
with a gentle obstinacy, but Val with a tentative
fear. She had once spoken to Belle of this fear and
of Father Hillair6 who had no pride, and whose
treasures, laid up in Heaven, were so great.

And all Paradise believed in it. All that is, save
Briston the foreman. Tom Briston had been longer
on the rancho than any other and he smoked many
a quiet pipe and thought long thoughts of his own.
But what he thought none knew, least of all the
boss himself.

In Santa Leandra there was b^inning to stir a
hidden speech. When next the Boss of Paradise
rode in to town he heard a bit of it, veiled and cov-
ered, but to a range man entirely understandable.
It felt the pulse of every cattleman, and it felt John
Hannon's and was satisfied.

'^ I'm with the movement," he said steadily, his

164 VAL OF PARADISE

keen eyes giTing back glance for glance to those
who spoke.

Dyke Attison was in that day and he listened
with a grim f rown^ for his right arm still hnng use-
less.

" I'd have t' see it first," he told Sanchez later,
" I'm still believin' in magic."

Brideman, big, burly, blond and thick with
money, heard the remark and his eyes twinkled.

" Yes," he said genially, " John does seem t' have
it, that's a fact. An' yet, you know, th' Black Rus-
tler struck Paradise at last an' when he did he hit
it hard, magic or no magic, fer that there Redstar
horse was Hannon's one best bet."

"If he rides," said Dyke, stubbornly, "I'll be-
lieve — a little — an' not till then."

And Brideman's deep guflfaw filled the narrow
street as he slapped the speaker on the back with a
huge and hairy hand.

" Well," he said, " I guess it don't matter much
to th' man from Paradise whether any one believes
— in magic — or not."

Lolo Sanchez passed that moment with a glance
of her black eyes for every man in sight and
Brideman looked after her, his bearded face
alert.

" That girl o' yours, Sanchez," he said insolently,
" is magic, all right."

The Mexican shifted on his feet and reached for
a paper to roll a cigarette. His thin brown face,
intelligent and quiet, changed subtly. He had

THE STIRRING TALK 165

never forgotten that day of high play at Hunne-
well's when Brideman had inyited the girl in
against his command.

"Yes, SeSor," he said, "she is. Bitter magic.
Some day she will stir up trouble for some
one."

That was nothing new.' 'All Santa Leandra
knew that. Already she had set two youths of the
town at swords' points, had parted Bar Barret and
his wife, and witness the night of the dance when
the blond boy had so nearly shot the stranger from
the Border. Yes, Lolo was " bitter magic " indeed,
as one man of the group was to find out on a day
in the dim future.

At Paradise the talk of the stirring among the
ranchers was daily diet. Perly, loquacious and
open-eyed, gathered all he could from riders on the
range and hashed it all over of nights in the lee of
the bunk-house where the cowboys lounged and
smoked.

The boss heard and listened, and his eyes took
stock of every man in his outfit.

Then Boyce Clendenning rode over again,
brought Belle some more books, accepted the new
ones her husband had brought her in his saddle-
bags in exchange, and talked long and earnestly
with the rancher. They sat out in the patio and
spoke alone together, for Val was out on Dawn-
light and Belle had due regard for the master's
dignity in heavy matters. The plans for catching
and hanging a man, be he ever so black and guilty.

^

\

166 VAL OP PAEADISE

were not things for a woman's ears to her way of
thinking — and she regretted Val's eagerness^ to
see them consummated.

But John Hannon was grimly with Clendenning^
hand and heart, it seemed.

" It will be a man-size job, John," said the
younger man earnestly, " and some one's likely to
get killed, for we all know the Black Bustler's fame
as a gun-man. There was the posse at Clehollis —
three men picked off like a top. There was the run-
ning fight with that rancher of Amafio — a brave
man and a pity he had no help — which left him dead
for the others to find. There was the great fight in
that saloon across the Border when the Rustler
cleared the bar-room and took the money from the
till and got away with it. The one thing about this
man is his wonderful courage. In all the tales they
tell of him this thing shines out like a star — his
hard personal courage that seems to look for danger
and to glory in it. When we corner the Black Rus-
tler the rangeland is due for the greatest fight it
ever saw, and to lose some of its citizens. But," he
added quietly, ^* we'll corner him if he ever ventures
in here again and we'll — ^lose the citizens. It's a
pity you haven't the Redstar, John, for we'U need
the best and fastest horses we can muster when this
great race comes off. You know what they say
about the horse he rides, that it's the best the Bor-
der ever saw."

"Yes," said Hannon, knocking out the dottle
from his pipe and watching the red sparks die on

THE STIRRING TALK 167

the stone flags at his feet, '^ I know — and I wish I
had the Redstar."

That peculiar savage light glowed for a second
in his covered eyes.

"But — I still have Lightning, an' he's worth
stakin' on. Lightnin's fair-to-middlin', you know,
Boyce."

And he smiled genially at his friend. The rivalry
of the horses was a friendly sore between them.

"Yes — and you'll need him," said Clendenning
with conviction, " for when this race comes off it's
going to be the best of its kind and we all want to
be in on it."

" You're right," said the boss quickly, while his
face showed for the first time a flame of excite-
ment, " it will be all of that — an' I'll be there."

Clendenning rose, holding out a hand.

" Your amazingly wonderful wife was lamenting
the other day that you might not get back in time.
8he thinks you alone could catch the Black Rustler^
John, so bound up in you is she."

For a second the light in the master's face flick-
ered. Then he laughed.

" Maybe I could," he said arrogantly with a flash
of Hannon pride. Then he shook hands and
watched the young rancher ride away on Dollar.

CHAPTER XV

ON THE RIM OF MESA GRANDE

VAL HANNON rode the rangeland constantly.
Bom to the open and the saddle as she was,
she seemed filled with a keener restlessness
than nsnal, a more poignant drawing to the sweep-
ing levels.

Day after day she mounted Redcloud or Dawn-
light — not so often Lightning, for since the Red-
star's loss the master kept the racer vv ^or his own
use — and went away for long hours irJto the stretch-
ing solitudes. Dreams lived in her heart, vast, opal-
coloured, cloudlike dreams that must have space
and majestic silence for their contemplation. Thqr
were vague things, these dreams, vague as an in-
fant's thoughts and as pure. They hardly touched
the earth at all, save and except as they bore the
scent of sweated horseflesh, the sound of poplars
whispering in a little breeze, the shadow of a broad
hat-brim across a strong lean face, the wonder of
warm lips on an outstretched hand.

For John Hannon's blood was stirring in her and
she had found her star. She had raised her inno-
cent eyes to it in the peculiar idolatry of that
strange staunch blood — ^and forever after she would
know no other light. Horse — ^friend — ^lover — Val

168

ON THE RIM OF MESA GIJANDE 169

Hannon would be true to them as simply as water
to its level. So she rode among the mesas and
dreamed her dreams, and always she listened for a
rider's coming from the illimitable distances,
searched the south for him.

And who shall say but that Velantrie, fighting
his inner battle far away, drawn desperately by the
triple lure of beauty, purity and honest love, felt
the longing of her heart, the call of those warm
brown eyes? At any rate he came again, on a
windy golden day, and met the girl by the Antelope
— and they had scarce need of speech.

They rode together with eager outstretched hands
and eyes that searched each other's faces with a
grave, fierce hunger.

" Val ! " said Velantrie, softly, for the first time
using her first name, even in his thoughts. Val did
not answer, though her every nerve responded to
the word. It seemed that for once in her life she
could not speak, that there was a fog of joy within
her throat.

She held hard to his hand and looked at him —
just as her father looked at Belle. It was a pity
that Belle Hannon could never see that look on her
husband's face. Velantrie was more blessed. This
day they did not think of Father. Hillair6, though
the man was bound for the Mission. Instead they
sat for a while and spoke in strained short sen-
tences, and all the while their eyes were speaking
swiftly in the old, old way.

" Ride with me," said Val, presently, " I want to

1^0 VAL OF PARADISE

show you my country — some of our springs — ^and
Mesa Grande."

And Velantrie, the strong, the man who mas-
tered his own desires, turned with her, weak as
water in this one girl's hands, and rode with her
openly across the plains. Gone were his resolu-
tions to guard her from his presence, forgotten his
promise to make his contemplation of the fair
shores short ! Velantrie of the Border rode side by
side with the Pride of Paradise in the wide expanse
and to any eyes beholding it would have blackened
Val with a dark suspicion — a thing he would have
died to prevent.

But look you, how Love dares!

So they went by Whitewater, boiling above its
silver sands, stopped to drink and loiter by its sen-
tinel trees, then on again toward the Mesa Grande
looming majestically in the light.

This Mesa Grande was new to Velantrie. He
did not know even that there was a way of reach-
ing its high level. He gave vent to an exclamation
of amazement at the narrow trail cut up along its
precipitous side. Like ants crawling on a cathedral
column, they crept up the frowning face to emerge
on the crown of the world and to sit, swung side-
wise in their saddles, scanning the plains below.

" This has always been a secret place for me,"
said Val, quietly, " I have come here always. It is
80 old and so still, so high in the sky, as if it is just
under the feet of God and I sometimes fancy I can
hear the angels' wings sweeping about the cliffs.

ON THE RIM OF MESA GRANDE 171

Of course it is only the little winds from the desert
beyond, but it sounds like wings if you sit right still
and listen."

Velantrie looked at her quickly and her lovely
face was grave as a child's and as peaceful. What-
ever others might feel at the nearness of celestial
beings, or the eerie silence and loneliness of the an*
cient spot, this girl was at home with either. In
her soul there was no fear of anything, either nat-
ural or supernatural.

A quick sigh drew across his lips and she turned
instantly. They were near of kin, these two, ah,
pitifully and tragically near !

" What? " she asked, as she had asked him once
before at an unspoken thought, and as before he an-
swered lightly, " Nothing — nothing in the world."

But at that moment he would have given all that
earth could hold for him of wealth or honour or
achievement — and it held, alas ! none of the three
— to have been the sort of man who could with
honour ask her for her heart. He looked desper-
ately out across the pale distances and the sick-
ness within him was becoming fatal.

They dismounted and leaving the horses to stand
in hip-dropped rest, walked here and there among
the crumbling huts of a lost, forgotten people.

" They builded well," said Val, " they left some-
thing of themselves — their work — to attest their
patience and their love of home. There is an old
story in the land that they died by violence, this
tribe who lived on Mesa Grande, that a conquering

172 VAL OP PARADISE

tribe at last scaled their stronghold here, and that,
rather than be taken, they flung themselves, women
and children and all down to the last babe, over the
precipice. I don't know how true it is, but I do
know that there are many small pieces of bleached
and broken bones at the foot of Mesa Grande at the
west. They loved the sun, you know, and it must
have been late in the day, so they made the great
sacrifice toward him."

Velantrie, leaning against a wall as mellow as a
sunset itself, listened with his longing eyes upon
>' her face.

" Sacrifice," he said at last gently — " that is a
wondrous word."

" The best in the language except one," she an-
swered quickly.

'' And that? "

" Love," said Val, simply, " because of love was
sacrifice born ! "

"Aye," said the man, "you're right,"

They walked on again, winding among the blind-
walled huts, stopping to scan some ancient picture
cut crudely into the face of the structure, and
finally stood on the northern edge of the high table-
land. Far off on the levels they could see the gath-
ered trees that sheltered Santa Leandra, mark the
winding course of the green-fringed stream. Be-
yond, the low escarpment of the circling hills
rimmed in the land.

Two &toms between the earth and sky they stood
together for a long; long time and watched the

ON THE RIM OF MESA GRANDE 173

eternal solitude where nothing moved save vultures
sailing high in the blue. It was mid-afternoon and
the drowsy heat was tempered by a soft wind from
the south. Where the central hut stood large
among its fellows they stopped again and Val sat
down, her booted feet crossed under her, and took
oflf her hat. The hair was sweated on her temples
and the man's eyes caressed each little pasted curl.
His fingers twitched with the age-old ache to
smooth them back, to touch the fair forehead be-
neath.

He rolled a cigarette instead and leaned against
the wall.

" This was the council-house," said Val, " where
the headmen gathered. It must have held a desper-
ate council that far-oflE time when the enemy was
coming up the cliflf — I'd have liked to see those grim
dark faces when they decided on the long leap for
all their race."

" Look at mine ! " said Velantrie with such sud-
den sharp bitterness that the girl caught her breath,
glancing up with startled eyes.

" What do you mean? " she said.

Velantrie, "sometime of the Border," threw
away the cigarette and sat down opposite her.

" What I said. Look at my face, Miss Hannon,
and you will see the same desperate decision — for
myself. Long ago I tried to make it — and for the
first time since I can remember, failed. In all the
great crises of my life I have been able to command
myself — until — ^lately. Always I have prided my-

174 VAL OF PARADISE

Bell on my inner strength. Now I find I am not so
strong as I had thought — that is, that I have not
been. I am deciding now — today — to * build well '
like our departed friends of the old huts here. I,
too, have a leap to make. Help me to make it, Miss
Hannon."

The smile that curled his lips was tender, but the
look in his blue eyes was growing hard, like a mar-
tial flame struggling up to light a marching army.

"Too long I have dallied in this country," he
went on, " I have wronged you, and Father Hillaire
and — myself — in staying hereabouts."

Val wet her lips and listened gravely. ^

" I told you once that I was black with sin — ^and
you ignored it. I told you that first night in Santa
Leandra that if you knew me you might not take
my hand — and you reached and clasped it."

" I could not help it," said Val, simply.

"Lord! Lord!"

He laid aside his heavy hat and wiped his face
with a hand that was not quite steady. The lines
of his features seemed to sink deeper in, as if he
stood to his task with an effort.

" I am a man forsworn to blood," he said pres-
ently, " a man whom all the Border knows. I am a
thief and a bandit. I have raided and pillaged for
four years now, and my hand has been against the
wealthy. I have a band of men who swear by me,
hard characters all, and they follow me for the
shares I give them of my ill-gotten gains. I hate
them all to a man, almost, but I must have them."

ON THE RIM OP MESA GRANDE 175

He paused and looked hard in the girl's eyes.
They were steady as harbour lights, though the
blood was slowly draining from her cheeks.

" Is that enough?" he asked brutally.

"No/' said Val Hannon, piteously, her fingers
gripping the brim of her hat, " it is not enough."

" Then by Heaven ! " cried Velantrie, leaping to
his feet, " I'U tell you the rest! "

Val rose too and faced him with her pale lips
fallen helplessly apart.

" I am on a man-hunt, forsworn to kill on sight
— and have been for four black years — ^the man
who killed my father ! "

They stared hard at each other, these two young
creatures there in the shade of the ancient council-
house on the top of the world, and they looked with
tragic eyes on the naked depths of each other's
souls.

" Is it enough?" said Velantrie, hoarsely, "will
you let me go now? "

But Val shook her head and put a strong hand
on his shoulder.

"No," she said again, "never under God's
heaven — if you want to stay. Do you? "

The man frowned and did iiot answer.

She leaned near, sweetly, dangerously near, and
her dark eyes were the most wonderful things he
had ever beheld in all his life — sane, suffering,
honest to the depths, but filled with the martial
light that had been in Father Hillair^'s when he
said " aye — the Christ and !•" And under all the

176 VAL op PARADISE

strength and the courage that shone in them Vel-
antrie saw that divine light grow and flame like an
eternal beacon among the stars. With a groan he
turned from her, covered his face with his hands
and laid it against the wall.

" My God ! " he whispered, " what shall I do? "

" Repent," said Val, sternly, " the door is open at
Refugio — and in my heart."

In the tense silence that followed, tragic, preg-
nant, the heat seemed to glimmer faintly from the
hard earth of the mesa and all the world about to
listen. The shoulder under the girl's gripping
hand trembled as with a chill.

Indeed a chill was at Velantrie's heart, anguish
was in his soul. Too long had he dallied in the
rangeland — and he was beginning to pay that price
of heart's blood with usury. For this woman, this
matchless woman of the high heart and the lov-
ing sweetness, this wondrous creature whose like he
had never known before — stood before him and said
courageously " the door is open in my heart ! "

She did not ask his crimes, his methods or his
reasons ! She knew he was black with sin, that mys-
tery surrounded him, that he went to oblivion and
came therefrom to hold her hand a timid moment,
that the good priest at Refugio would tell her
nothing of him — all these she knew — and yet —
"the door is open in my heart! "

A sigh that was near a sob heaved the man's
shoulders and he straightened from the wall, wip-
ing his ashen face with a downward sweep of his

ON THE RIM OP MESA GRANDE 177

hands. When he looked at Val again he had aged,^
tremendously. But the shaking of his features was
done. He was steady as a rock.

" If I could," he said, " I would — but my word is
given to the dead. Let's speak no more about it."

"We will speak of it," said the girl, "do you
think I'll let you go without an effort? "

" No," said Velantrie, swiftly, " I know that you
would do more to save my worthless soul than I
should ever let you."

" You have an oath to keep. A bad word broken
is better than one kept. Will you not break this
one — because I ask you to? "

"Don't!" cried the man, "Don't ask me that!
The man was my father, and I loved him as few
sons love their parents. Do you love John Han-
non?"

Val caught her breath with a little gasp. He was
bringing the thing close home to her.

" Yes," she answered.

" Could you see him killed before your eyes —
and let the murderer go unpunished? "

Val's hand slipped from his shoulder and she
turned frowning eyes out over the distant plain.
Far in the pale expanse a rider on a pinto horse
came idly by the mesa.

She studied it absently while she turned this over
in her mind. John Hannon— big, iron-grey, hand-
some. If a man should kill him — aye, she'd be
like this man before her, savage, hard as adamant,
bent on revenge. Yes, assuredly — there was no

178 VAL OF PARADISE

other way. Why^ she had said she'd kill the man
who stole the Bedstar^ for so slight a wrong as
that! One's father, now —

" I see," she said at last slowly, " I understand.''

" And when I've done the thing," said Velantrie,
bitterly, " I cannot come back to you — ^not then."

" Why? " she asked simply.

Velantrie gulped and swallowed.

A wry smile curved up his lips pathetically.

" Because I can't," he said, " there is an ethics
of the case which says the man who dares to lift
his eyes to you must be clean as a man can be. I'm
not that man."

" You are that man," said Val, clear-eyed, " there
is no other."

" No. You've made me weak as water. I've lin-
gered here when I should have been gone long back
on the restless quest I've followed. Now I must be
gone again. The clue I followed here ias seemed
to vanish in thin air, anyway, the clue of The Me-
teor."

" The Meteor? What's that? "

" The horse I told you of one day — the tie-twin
of The Comet. The man I'm hunting for is the
man who stole this horse — that black day across the
Mexican Border which made me what I am. There
had been great racing at New Orleans and my
father, who owned these two wonderful horses, had
had them there. They had run to within two sec-
onds of the world's record and offers poured in
from all sides for them. He would not sell them.

ON THE RIM OP MESA GRANDE 179

not for a thousand times their value, for he was a
horseman born and they were his pride and glory.
I travelled with him always, for we were all of our
blood extant, the old man aiyl I, and the life was
gay and free. It was a clean life, too, for the pater
was a clean and courteous gentleman, of good old
Kentucky stock. After the New Orleans races we
started for a town in Mexico. It was fine spring
weather, and at El Paso we took the horses from
the railroad and, with two trainers and extra
mounts, were going down on horseback. I'll never
forget his pride and pleasure in tEe splended ani-
mals.

" * Son,' he would say sometimes, ' these stars of
ours will shine around the world some day.' "

" But his happiness was short-lived — ^a mere mat-
ter of a few pleasant weeks as we got farther down
toward our destination — ^for one gorgeous twilight
as we made ready to camp in a fold of the hills,
two masked men dropped from a rocky pass and
ambushed the camp. It was a daring thing, bold
and clean-cut, and took us unawares, who were
always prepared. They were white men — no Mexi-
cans, and both were big men. The two handlers and
I were willing to obey the guns we faced — ^but this
Kentucky gentleman, this fiery old father of mine
— ah, he was a fighter born ! And it was his horses
that the masked men wanted, his matchless racers !

^^ So he refused and leaped for his gun beside a
rock — and the leader shot him as he ran ! Shot him
dead in his tracks, reaching for the gun ! I think

180 VAL OP PARADISE

I went mad that minute, for I leaped at the bandit
then, half np on his horse I went, clawing like a
cat. I carried a knife and I tried to kill him with
it, but he beat me off with his gun-butt. As I fell,
my face battered to a pulp by the flailing butt, I
raked him with my clutching fingers — and tore
away his mask. I saw his face, just one swift sec-
ond before the darkness of failing sight blotted it
out, and it was a handsome face, middle-aged and
eagle-keen, and the long dark eyes that lighted it
were hard as steel and terrible. When I came back
to earth we were two dead men and two living
ones, for one of the handlers had been killed also.
The other was a brave chap and he brought me
round, helped to gather up the scattered horses, and
the next day we buried our dead at the foot of the
hill. There at that unmarked grave I made my
oath, and started out to keep it. For four years I
have searched the earth for a big grey man with
long dark eyes that glittered with a mad excite-
ment — and some day I shall find him. There was
but one bit of good left me from that bitter day —
The Comet, who loved me best of all who touched
him, would have none of the strangers.

" The trainer said he went mad as a lunatic when
they tried to take him. Wild, screaming, furious,
he charged them full, broke his rope and literally
drove them into the sanctuary of the pass — ^but
they took his gentler double, the starry-eyed Me-
teor. Out of the chasms and defiles The Comet
came next day at my ceaseless calling, came ram-

ON THE RIM OF MESA GRANDE 181

pant and blowing, and we've been together ever
since."

Velantrie ceased, rolled his wide hat aimlessly
between his fingers and set it back upon his head.
He pulled it well down above his eyes and turned
to the girl with his old gentle smile.

" Come, Miss Hannon," he said, " let me take you
down. The tale is told — ^the story finished. Now
you know * Velantrie, sometime of the Border,' save
and except the fashion of my living. That can be
told in a breath. I hate oppression. In Mexico it
thrives appallingly. I have had to travel cease-
lessly. I have put my hand against every man who
wrongs a helpless one, and I have enjoyed the price
I've made them pay wherever and whenever I
could. I have stolen right and left — and given it
right and left. I have kept nothing for myself ex-
cept the bread I ate. And always I have searched
— searched for The Meteor and the man who rides
him — for I mean to have them both."

He reached for her hand with a firm grip and
drew her with him out from the shelter of the coun-
cil-house to where the horses stood at the steep
trail's head. As they paused to mount, Val again
put her hand on his shoulder and faced him gravely.

" Some day," she said softly, " some day — ^you —
will come back — to me?"

The muscles in Velantrie's arms twitched but he
held them sternly at his sides. The knuckles on his
clenched hands shone pearly white with the effort.

" No," he said thickly, " I am — not the man."

182

yAL OF PARADISE

But Val Hannon, her dark eyes dim with honest
tears, leaned forward and kissed him square upon
his tight-shut lips.

" Some day," she said with strange conviction,
" you will come back — ^to the Church door — and —
to me."

Then they mounted in silence, and in sil^tice
went down the trail to the levels below.

CHAPTER XVI

THB VIXEN^S HEART

" When love, rejected, turns to hate.
All ill betide the man." — Kipling.

VELANTRIE'S soul was chaos. As he fol-
lowed Val Hannon down the face of Mesa
Grande a flood of bitter waters rose and
drowned his inner self. Regrets, remorse, sorrow,
they all took hold on him and wrung him like a rag
between them.

What had he been? A bandit of the Border!

What was he now? The same and worse — a
weakling, eating out his heart in sight of Heaven,
neither able to enter or depart !

And his head was whirling like a drunkard's
with the exquisite memory of that honest kiss. No
matter what happened he would always have that,
a priceless possession. If there had been any good
in his life, if the books of the Great Recorder held
any mark of merit in his name, this was his reward
and he was thrice blessed. Always would this
hour stand out as the crown of his existence, the
peak and pinnacle.

And then they reached the bottom of the trail,
set deep between huge shafts of rotting stone, and
— came face to face with Lolo Sanchez on a pinto

183

184 VAL OP PARADISE

pony. Dusky as sunset, full-blown as a flower, very
beautiful in a sensuous fashion, she sat and looked
at them — or at the man, rather.

Val she did not seem to see. The bud of her scar-
let mouth broke over her small blue-white teeth in
a smile that had ravished more hearts than one
and she held out one slim hand.

** Master ! " she said in Spanish.

Velantrie, roused from his tense reverie, pulled
himself together and shook the hand politely.

" How do you do, Lolo? " he said.

^^ C6mo estd V. t " she returned, still in the Span-
ish, as if by its use she narrowed the interest to
themselves.

Velantrie turned to Val.

"Miss Hannon," he said, "do you know the
SeSorita Sanchez? "

" No," said Val and smiled.

But Lolo did not smile. Instead the look she
threw at the other girl was slow, appraising, inso-
lent. The Rose of Santa Leandra had never for-
given the loosening of this man's arm, the slipping
of herself out of his consciousness when he glanced
up that night at Hunnewell's to face John Han-
non's daughter. Therefore she hated the woman.

"What matters? " she said, " I — am only — Lolo
of Leandra, too lowly for the Pride of Paradise to
see."

With consummate art she dropped her wonderful
eyes, and she was on the second the lowly, as she
said, the meek, the far beneath. Only Lolo of Lean*

THE VIXEN^S HEART 185

dra — poor iii this world's goods, a little sister of
the more fortunate. 'And Velantrie was the friend
of snch.

Val, nnderstanAng perfectly, stiffened in her
saddle and a slow flash grew in her cheeks.

The girl looked up and all her flower face melted
in beauty of tenderness as she smiled at him.

" None but you, my master," she said softly, " is
80 kind to me. Women hate me — all of them.
... I have still the gold you gave me — ^and the
kiss as well."

Velantrie's nostrils drew in in a sharp white line.

« Lolo," he said, " speak English."

" No need," said Val quickly, " I understand."

He did not look at her, though a cold hand
gripped at his vitals.

**Well?" he said.

^^ Nothing," said Lolo like a child.

Verily do things rise from the past like evil
ghosts, thought the man. That cheap and tawdry
kiss, given in the gaiety of a reckless moment, came
back to damn him now in the one woman's eyes as
a worthless trifler. What could she think, what
could she feel but a nauseous revulsion, even as he
himself felt it!

He looked at Lolo and the sparkle was hard as
flintstone in his eyes. The little vixen meant to do
the trick she had done, to step between and turn
Val from him.

But to his astonishment Val spoke.

"Well?" she said, "Velantrie is good to all.

186 VAL OP PARADISE

He has given gold to many, and a kis8 is sign-man-
ual of a gentle heart."

The man drew a long breath, held it, let it ont.

Lolo flashed a glance at Val then — ^a venomous
spurt Artist recognized artist.

** But not like mine ! " she cried. " He gambled
for and won me ! He is my master ! "

" Perhaps," said Val, sharply, " and he will know
what to do with his possessions."

" Lolo, little one," said Velantrie, " tell it all."

" What all is there, save that you won me fair-
and-square from Brideman?"

Another long breath lifted Velantrie's breast.
Lolo and all her kind were monstrous to him now —
but she was a woman and he had never spoken
harshly to a woman in his life. He turned and
looked at Val — and his heart leaped at the steady
faith which burned in her eyes.

"I can explain " he said, but she shook her

head.

"Why should you?" she answered, "I need no
explanation. Your face is enough for me."

" My God ! " groaned Velantrie, " what have I
done to be worthy ! Father Hillair^ was right — I
should have gone long back ! "

He passed a hand across his eyes and addressed
Lolo gently.

" Lolo," he said, " go home — and as I told you
that day, don't try these shameless tricks."

A red flame mounted to the girl's very hair,
burning, hot, furious.

THE VIXEN'S HEART 187

" A wonderful nnderstanding ! " she cried, " great
faith and confidence — ^between Miss Val Hannon
of Paradise — and — the Black Bustler ! Very beau-
tiful — mi Dioal ^^

And with a swing of her braided quirt on the
pinto's flanks she whirled and was gone around
the broken fringes of Mesa Grande.

The Black Rustler ! Before Val's eyes the levels
shimmering in the afternoon sun seemed to rise and
dance grotesquely. She put out a hand to steady
herself and grasped the empty air. Velantrie,
quivering in his saddle, did not touch it.

The Black Rustler ! Curse of the cattle country
— enemy of right — ^lifter of horses — ^with a price
upon his head !

And Boyce Clendenning set like a hound upon
his trail! She seemed to feel again the reticence
of the riders at Paradise to discuss the Rustler —
remembered the tight-lipped quiet concerning that
night at Hunnewell's! A thousand small things
rose up and took on meaning in her jumbled con-
sciousness — and still the levels danced and her
mouth was dry as ashes. No sound came from her
white lips but she felt as she had felt that noon
when she groped for the step and heard her father
say " Are you my daughter? Then buck up and
be a man ! '^

The pain in her heart at Redstar's loss had been
a bagatelle compared to the black anguish that lay
there now !

The Black Rustler! Velantrie — the slim, the

188 VAL OP PAEADISE

vital, the tender ! Velantrie of the sparkling eyes !
This, then, was what he had meant when he had
asked her to " let him go " — ^was what Father EQl-
lair^ had meant when he said ^^ if I should tell yon
something that would make you less happy " — this
was the hideous meaning of it all !

And still the levels danced and a fog was in her
throat. And Velantrie himself sat there with his
eyes upon her face and said not a word. At last
she wet her lips and turned to him — and the man
cursed inwardly at the anguish on her face —

" Tell — me," she said thickly, " that it — ^is — not
true ! Deny "

Velantrie turned his gaze from her and looked
out along the plains. The blue eyes narrowed, the
stern look that the Border knew came hard about
his mouth. He thought of his promise to the padre
— of the Church door — and the woman. Of the
dallying and the pain it had brought at last. The
hand lying open on his pommel closed.

" No," he said at last, " I— do not deny."

Val's face worked and she put out a trembling
hand. Always it seemed she was reaching, con-
sciously or unconsciously, for this man.

" You— can not? "

He thought a moment.

" No," he said, " can not."

Her lips were shaking, the tears were welling in
her dark eyes, all but spilling over.

" Even so," she said, " you are my man. Gk)od-
bye."

THE VIXEN'S HEABT

189

Without a word Vdantrie struck spurs to the
horse beneath him and shot forth to the hot plain
— and oblivion.

And Val Hannon at the trail's foot laid her face
down in Bedcloud's mane and fell to weeping — ^the
low, deep weeping that comes but rarely to strong
and sustained natures.

CHAPTER XVII

BRISTON DOBS SOMB THINKING

MANY things were brewing in the rangeland.
Among the ranchers the talk had crystal-
lized into preparedness. Meetings had been
held, squads apportioned for different parts of the
country under this rancher and that to patrol and
to watch, a system of fire-signals — farthest reach-
ing sign-speech of the plains — agreed upon. Boyce
Clendenning and his neighbours meant to lose no
more fat steers, no more hard-earned profits.

At Refugio Father Hillair^ read his ancient
books and sighed uneasily. A nameless stir was in
the air, and he prayed often and fervently for Vel-
antrie, who came no more to the Mission.

At Santa Leandra, Lolo Sanchez studied a man
with her cunning eyes and cast the light of her
smiles that way — ^and the man was none other than
that huge bulk of laughter and mysterious wealth,
Brideman. Amazed, fiattered out of all reason, the
bearded giant came often to Leandra and he tied
his horse at Sanchez' fence, to stand in the shadow;
of the cottonwoods and talk with the girl.

And far in the rugged fastnesses of the Blind
Trail Hills the days wore by with weariness. In
Bedstar's hidden glade the path by the binding
walls was growing deeper, the top sapling of the in-

190

BKISTON DOES BOME THINKING 191

set gate was thinned and ragged, flaunting long
white fibre banners to the breeze, for the stallion
never ceased his constant gnawing at the hindering
bars. As for the king himself, he was lean with the
endless fret, hard as nails with the everlasting runs
about the walls, and his eager ^es were hollow
with despair.

And dusk after dusk he stood out in the centre
of the green floor and called his ringing peal. Only
the silence and the coming night answered with
their echoes and their loneliness.

At Paradise the old free life had passed beneath
a shadow, for Val, the light of the rancho, was dim
with a strange depression. There was no laughter
on her lips now, no pretty tricks delighted the rid-
ers coming in or going out. Instead a mortal sick-
ness was in her long dark eyes, a tremble was
always just behind her lips.

"For th' love of Pete, Val," said Perly, miser-
ably, "what's ailin' you? Is it anything we've
done — any of us? If it is tell me an' I'll bust th'
8on-of-a-gun till his mother wouldn't know him.
Tell me, Val."

But the girl shook her head and turned away,
and Briston swore at Perly with his eyes.

Belle, the keenest heart at Paradise beside her
daughter's, knew that something was vastly wrong
and she made one gentle probe to find its cause.

"Val darling," she said, "there's a shadow in
your sky. Can you tell your mother? "

And Val, standing by a window in the twilight

193 VAL OF PAEADISE

where the fine-leaved vine grew thick, saw the crim-
son and purple veils waver through her slow tears.

" It's not a shadow, Belle," she said, " it's the
end of the world, seems like — ^bnt I, cannot tell it —
not even to you, for there's a secret with it that's
not mine."

"It isn't Boyce, of course?" asked Belle half
hopefully.

" No — it isn't Boyce, of course."

" Nor any one at Paradise? "

" No."

And Belle fell silent, thinking of the toy from
Texas with the " feet like thistledown." Perhaps
it might be he. There was no other on whom she
could settle from the remembered snatches of Val's
talk after the scattered dances.

But if all Paradise knew that Val was in trouble,
there was one who gave it little thought — ^the boss
himself. John Hannon was a strange man these
days, who had always been so to his subordinates.
He seemed strung like a singing wire, full of energy,
blazing with a zest of life that made him marked
among the slower blood of more youthful men. He
entered into the ranchers' plans for the capture of
the Black Rustler with vim and apparent joy.

" Perhaps John Hannon's magic," he said point-
edly to them one day, "will work again — ^in
another way."

And sometimes his eyes, dropped quickly when
he felt their tell-tale fire, shone with that odd ex-
citement that was mad as lunacy.

BKISTON DOES SOME THINKING 193

^*Th' best in its line," he mattered to himself
once smoking in the patio, " th' Black Bustler — ^is
th' best in his line."

When the ache in her breast became so heavy
as to be unendurable, when it seemed every breath
she drew was fraught with pain, when only sighs
were on her lips to ease the stricture of her lungs,
Val saddled Dawnlight and went to Befugio.

^^ Padre/^ she said, standing by the little table
where she had listened entranced to Velantrie^s
pleasant speech so long — so long ago it seemed ! —
^^ padre dear — Vyb come for help."

Her lips quivered with the troublesome tears
that were so near her eyes now, and Father Hillair6
looked deep into her face, opened his old arms and
took her in against his breast with her forehead
pressed to his shabby cassock.

His own heart was very bitter and sad at that
moment, torn with a thousand griefs — ^the griefs
of all humanity. Why, oh, why, had that reckless
youth come like a flaming meteor out of the south
to burn and sear with his forbidden charm this
wholesome, happy life! This child he had almost
raised, this sweet and true woman, for whose hap-
piness he would, as he had said, have laid down his
own worn-out body — it was a bitter reward indeed
for all his labours, all her truth and obedience.

And yet, strive as he might, he could not blame
Velantrie. Velantrie, with his bitter pledge, his
memories biting like a whip, his reckless life that
must eventually end where all such must — in igno-

194 .VAL OP PAEADISE

ble death. Verily the sorrows of the world pressed
down upon the priest heavy as the hand of doom —
and his own tears salt and bitter with experi^ice,
sweet with divine love, fell on Val's black head.

*^ Tell me," he said, " what yon have learned.'^

And into this wise heart which had been her safe
confessional since she could remember, she poured
the story of her love and its bitter end.

*' And Lolo called him, padre /^ she sobbed, "the
— ah! — the Black — Rustler — and he — did not
deny ! He said — ah ! — that — ^he could not ! "

'' Whatf '' cried Father Hillair^, the tears sud-
denly blinked from before his vision, "why —
he "

Then he drew in his breath with a whistling
sound and said no more.

" Higher Hands," he murmured, " perhaps — ah,
well, it is in higher Hands than mine, at last."

And to himself he said sadly, "Tragedy steps
this way with her head covered. Ah, Val, Val —
my little, little one ! "

But the habit of a wonderful life was strong
upon him and he gathered his spiritual forces to
weave a web of comfort in which to wrap this
young soul, quivering from its first great blow. So
well did he succeed that when she went back to
Paradise some four hours later Val Hannon was
her father's daughter once again, strong, contained,
ready to face the odds of life with the great cour-
age that was inherent in her.

So time passed. The heat of the summer les*

BRISTON DOES SOME THINKING 195

sened, the soft blue haze deepened on the plains^
and Indian Bummer came oyernight. Its little cool
winds were soft as the breath of a child, the gold
of its sunlight thrice refined and tender.

To Val this mysterious season, short-lived and
precious, had always been a time of great joy, of
sweeping rides on Bedstar when the world invited
and she leaped to its very breast, when she seemed
more than half wild, a thing of the plains and sky.

Now the levels called to her in vain. There was
no red king to come at her call, to sail away be-
neath her like the flowing winds themselves, and
there was no joy, anywhere in the wide universe, to
attend her.

All the meekness and patience she had learned in
the sacred quiet of Refugio seemed hollow mock-
eries. What had she done that this bitter cup must
come to her? Ah — ^but Christ drank the brew upon
the cross. And He was innocent as any lamb. So
she went about her daily duties with a grip upon
herself, and there was no shame within her that she
loved the Black Bustler, only a sorrow so vast that
it darkened all the world. And added to the pain
was such a fear that cold sweat stood upon her tem-
ples under the little curls Velantrie had longed
to touch, and her heart seemed very small and tight
in her breast.

For this fear sprang from the thought of Boyce
Glendenning the man who '^ would get what he
went after," and from knowledge of her father.
If these two men, the flower of the rangeland to

196 VAL OP PABADISE

her mindy rode after the Rustler his doom was
sealed. And that doom ! A dozen times she started
up in bed with a choking cry at dreams of the Crag
Oak springing from the Blind Trail cli£Es with a
black body swinging from its long^ grotesque limb !
A slim dark body with the moon behind it, its grace-
ful limbs limp and swinging in the little breeze!
At each repetition of this awful dream the girl
would coyer her face with her shaking hands and sit
huddled in her blankets, cowering before that stern
thing, Life, and its retributions.

But still within her there was no shame, while
there was a something she could not define — ^a faith,
a feeling, an intuition, what you will, that held Vel-
antrie good despite it all. Good — yes. Those deep
blue eyes of his with the tender light that flamed
and flickered, there was gentleness there, and the
simple truth of the heart that women know and
prize. The winning smile, the handclasp,, warm
and tight and honest — these came to her tortured
soul and gave it comfort. Whatever of wrong and
sin could be laid at the Black Bustler's door, she
knew within her that he had never harmed a child
or a woman or a dog. And neither could she recon-
cile the loss of Redstar now — ^for with that same
keen inner sense she knew Velantrie had never
taken him. \

So the days went by on leaden feet, sw^t blue
days, hazy, soft, fllled with the mystery of spring,
the mild content of summer, the forecast of the fall.

Sometimes Val turned her eyes to where Mesa

BRISTON DOES SOME THINKING 197

Grande stood like a flat-topped mountain, and then
she grew weak in the knees with memory of that
last terrible day, leaned against a wall and slow
tears filled her eyes.

Verily what Father Hillair^ had hoped would
always pass her by, had found her out — she who
was "bom to peace and the even way of honour
and of happiness ! " Sorrow had set its seal upon
her; tragedy held a hovering hand above her head.
And every rider at the rancho was beginning to
feel, in varying degrees, that the trouble which had
so changed the Pride of Paradise had to do with
that far-past night at Hunnewell's and the man
they were banning to call the Black Bustler,
though how or why they could not figure out.

Briston smoked many cigarettes under the stars
and wove long webs of thought and a great unrest
was on his faithful heart. He saw many things that
others did not and he watched several persons
covertly — among them Jos6.

He had long watched Jos6. The slim brown
Mexican was very clever, very quiet and contained.
Miguel and Arias, the latter long since keeping
house with pretty Felicita in the good cabin beyond
the third corral — they were clear ponds compared
to him. Also the Indian vaqueros.

Jos^, now, Jose with his fathomless eyes and his
silent step — who on the rancho so well fitted to
leave the place in the night and be back at dawn
with no one the wiser? Who, for instance, with the
adroit cunning to wrap a horse's feet? Who made

198

VAL OP PABADISE

8uch fancy hackamores — to bind a restless nose?
And whose eyes, among all the riders, lifted to the
boss's with just that lightning flicker, fell so
swiftly when the flash between the two was done?
Yea, verily — ^Tom Briston wasted long night
hours when he might have slept, and much good
tobacco— thinking.

CHAPTER XVIII

THB FAOB IN THB DOORWAY

ONCE more Santa Leandra drowsed beneath
its trees. like an ancient dame among
towns she sat above her priceless stream, her
old head nodding in the haze, her hands folded in
her lap. Her doors were open to the soft winds and
the sunshine, her countless babies brawled in her
silent streets, her nondescript dogs slept on her
sills.

Marta Winne, still unlovely of person and virtu-
ous, gossipped in her mossy back yard with a
woman in faded calico and slatted sunbonnet.

" Th' little hussy gets worse an' worse," she said,
** she's hard an' calculatin' an' full of laughter. You
can't tell me! She's brewin' trouble again an' I
know it. If Brideman had a woman, some one'd
better warn her — but he ain't, not that I ever
heard of."

" No," said the other woman, ** I guess he ain't.
An' it's a good thing, too, for Brideman's a strange
man. He's always comin' and goin', with money
in every pocket — an' where's he get it? as I says to
John. Where's he get it? An' all th' funny things
he plays away — th' ivory hand, f'r instance — that
same that Lolo wears on a chain around her neck
now — an' th' old ring with the poison blade in It."

199

200 VAL OP PABADISE

Bhe shook her head darkly. ^^ Yes, it's well he ain't
married."

" He's in tpday," said Marta^ " see that big raw-
bone horse of his tied under Sanchez'/ trees? I bet
th' Mexican's wild inside him at that. He's got no
love for Brideman, none in th' least.'*

True enough. At the tumble-down picket fence
that flanked the Sanchez cabin there stood a huge
dark horse^ ill made and awkward, its slug head
drowsily hanging, its broad hips slung sidewise as
it rested. It was hung together like a scaffold, and
it seemed its giant bones must creak when it moved,
— but there was not a man in Santa Leandra who
knew that when it squared away in action with the
open plain for field there was not a horse in all the
rangeland that could catch it, neither Dollar, nor
Bilkskin, nor yet five of Hannon's Red Brood —
save and except that lost glory of Paradise, Red-
star, the king — that Lightning himself could do no
more than run with it.

For this ungainly horse was part of the mystery
that was Brideman, and he had never entered the
town upon it faster than a trot. Today it seemed
asleep, slow, sluggish, stupid. But the big man
leaning on the pickets with Lolo's hand in his in
open sight, knew that should he leap to its saddle
with a certain sharp command it could, and would, •
spring out of its lazy droop like a spring released.

But Brideman was not riding this day. He had
just come and he meant to stay long, for Lolo
smiled at him in a way that made him mad with

THE FACE IN THE DOORWAY 201

'desire — and there was likely to be play at Hunne-
weirsy since he saw the hard lean horses of Velan^
trie's band tied at the hitchrack.

There was no mistaking the great red stallion
with the sweeping mane and tail, the dusky cloud
drifting across shoulder and hip where the dim
black dapples shone, the regal head and the flash-
ing dark eyes. To any one who had once seen him
he was unmistakable.

Inside, the quick-eyed bunch who followed him
stood round Velantrie at the bar and waited on
Hunnewell's deft hands for the refreshment for
which their throats were parching.

For Velantrie had not left the rangeland— only
a certain enchanted part of it. He rode no more
by Mesa Grande save as he came to Santa Leandra,
and the pale walls of the Mission haunted him like
a ghost. Even the old town would soon be a thing
of his past, for he was all but ready to move on into
that vast and illimitable West along the Border
where all his ilk drift sooner or later.

There was one last thread to slip his feeling fin-
gers down, to trace to its end — ^and then adieu, all
dreams, all faint visions of that high plane on
which he had wandered vicariously these past few
months. For some one, a meek brown Mexican who
hung about the town, had dropped an artless word
concerning a horse, a great red horse, tall and slim
and shining with red fire, whose speed was said to
be as the winds themselves, on whose shoulders
there was a misty cloud of black ! That was all.

202 VAL OP PAEADISE

Neither where this horse lived nor who was his
owner, and Velantrie, looking carelessly away at
some point of the compass, had not asked. But a
fire was in his heart, as always when he found, or
thought he found, a faint line in the dust to follow.

So he came, now and again, to Santa Leandra
and always his soul strained at its bonds of flesh
to hear all, see all, feel all and betray none of what
it gathered.

Lolo Sanchez he saw once and again, but to save
his life he could not bear the sight of her face, the
sound of her voice with its hard shrill gaiety. She
had cost him too much, he thought savagely.

And yet, had he threshed the thing out with his
usual cool judgment he would have known that
Lolo had forced the great decision at which he had
faltered so long. Forced it, yes — ^for deep down in
his heart he was not sure that he could have ridden
away from Mesa Grande with Val Hannon's kiss
upon his lips had it not been just as it was. He had
said he was decided — but could he have made it
good, under those true brown eyes with the tears in
them?

This thought was with him today as he stood
frowning at the bar — and he snapped his fingers,
fihook his head.

^* Water," he said to Hunnewell when the glasses
were filled.

Then he moved among the booted and spurred
cowboys, selected a chair a little to one side with
his back toward the wall and his eyes toward the

THE FACE IN THE DOORWAY 203

door — a never-failing precaution with him — and
sat down. He drew money from his pockets and
reached for the cards that lay, new in their bind-
ings, on the dirty canvas table top. As he did so,
Brideman loomed in the doorway, searching the
crowd with his hilarious blue eyes.

" Hel — lo ! '^ he shouted, " th' young feller that
once floored Brideman ! Back f r more play ! Play
with me, young 'un?"

" Sure," said Velantrie, briefly, looking up, " we
play with any." He was the only man in the coun-
try who would not have added the usual " one."

The old reckless gaiety and light were in his
face intensified a thousandfold, though somehow
changed. Where it had once been joyous, carefree,
youthful vim that lighted his mobile features, now
it was a certain hardness, a forced cheer. The
pleasant gentleness of his eyes was gone. They were
impatient, quick, taking stock of this and that as
if for a purpose.

Hunnewell, nonchalantly wiping up his ancient
bar, glanced at him and saw the change.

"This here Don Kee-ota," he said to himself,
" ain't jest th' same. Perhaps — ^jest perhaps, now
— he's heard this Black Bustler talk — ^but he's a
brave man if he has, an' still comes into Santa
Leandra where every man is watchin'."

And the unspoken word was true in all respects.
Velantrie was a brave man — and all the town was
watching.

Brideman came in with a rattle of spurs, a heave

204 VAL OP PAEADISE

and lurch of his massive body, pulled out a chair
and sat down facing him, laid money oxi the table,
and the game was on.

Far out across the levels to the south and east
two riders came on swift horses, and they would
have challenged any eye beholding. Both horses
and riders seemed " the best in their line " — ^light-
ning and Bedcloudy shining in their perfection, can-
tering gracefully, neither hurrying nor hanging
back but covering ground in that amazing efficiency
of the really fast horse — John Hannon and his
daughter erect in their saddles with the martial
carriage that marked them both. They rode ex-
actly alike — in every motion, every posture. If
Val had been a son she would have been her father's
double. As it was she was, as she had once told
Velantrie, " a chip off the old block."

They were headed for the distant town and they
talked desultorily of this and that, and fell silent
for long spaces. Tour true plainsman can be elo-
quently silent, and comfortably so as well.

In one of these long intervals Val was thinking,
as she thought so often, of Velantrie, and her face,
despite the care she was exercising lately to control
it, showed the sadness of her heart.

" Dad," she said presently, " what constitutes a
good man ? "

Her father glanced swiftly at her under his hat
brim.

" A brave man, an' a quick one on th' trigger,"
he said.

THE FACE IN THE DOORWAY 205

*^ Bight or wrong? "

" Bah/' said the Boss of Paradise, " what's right
an' wrong? Bight — to make, an' keep, your fam'ly
happy — to succeed in everything yon undertake.
Wrong — ^to fail in both."

^^ It's a funny world," she said again some time
later.

"Mighty good world," answered Hannon,
"there's no end to its chances — ^if a man knows
how t' play them, an' has courage."

The girl grew deep in reverie and said no more,
and the plain swept back and Santa Leandra
loomed before them, drowsy, basking in the blue-
gold haze. Then they cantered down the street and
stopped at Hunnewell's.

As they dismounted Val turned to tie Bedcloud
— and stopped in her tracks, her hands arrested on
the rein, her mouth fallen open. Her eyes, widened
to their limit, stared helplessly. Then a flood of
joy burned over her face from brow to throat and
she sprang forward with a cry that was half a
sob.

''Redstart'' she cried, '' Oh— Redstart '' And
flung herself against the hitchrack to reach her
frantic arms for the great head among its cloud of
mane.

But it was well the hitchrack was between — ^for
the stallion, unused to women, owning but one mas-
ter among men, savage by instinct and quick as
lightning, sprang up, the full length of his rein, on
his hind legs. His ears flattened to his head, bowed

206 VAL OF PAEADISE

on his arching neck^ his eyes flashed with rage and
enmity^ his teeth gleamed in his open mouth, and he
came down striking the rail with his iron-shod
forefeet, a raving demon.

With a gasp the girl fell back, her face like ashes.
For a tranced moment she stood so, while into her
mind there flashed the words of Velantrie, **wild,
screaming, furious ... he literally drove than
into the pass."

This was not Redstar — ^but — The Comet! The
Comet — double of — The Ifeteor — once within two
seconds of the world's record at New Orleans ! And
she had taken him, literally and instinctiyely, for
Redstar, the king of the Red Brood !

Certain things were getting tragically mixed,
hopelessly entangled. A vague misgiving rose in
her breast and gripped her. What did these things
mean? Then she raised her eyes and looked at her
father.

A little way apart John Hannon stood looking
at The Comet — and she did not know him ! Another
John Hannon it was — a tense, poised man with his
hand upon his gun, with nostrils that shook in and
out, and with hard dark eyes that shone and glit-
tered with excitement !

" Dad ! " she breathed, but he did not hear her.

Instead he was thinking fast, while a strange un-
certainty sat upon him. He moved at last, as if to
take saddle again — then stopped, threw up his head
with a motion Val had never seen in him, and came
back to himself with a jerk.

THE FACE IN THE DOORWAY 207

" Well," he said collectedly, " let's go into Hun-
neweU's/'

Inside, the men playing at the tables had heard
the stir of arrival, but arrivals were common at
HunneweH's. Therefore they paid it no atten-
tion.

None save Velantrie. Though he placed his
money and went on with the game, he yet heard and
knew that two people were coming up the steps to
the open porch — but he did not know that of all
people in the world they were to him the most im-
portant. He moved the cards in his hand, shifted
the cigarette in his lips, frowned through the smoke
— and glanced at the door.

In the next second there was the sound of a fall-
ing chair, a catlike leap, and Velantrie of the Bor-
der was in the middle of the floor, his gun in his
hand and his blue eyes narrowed to cold points —
for John Hannon's face was in the doorway !

Two shots sounded as one — ^and Velantrie
whirled, fired again, wildly, and recovered — ^but
Hannon's gun was on him, the hard dark eyes men-
acing him with instant death.

"Well," said the cattleman evenly, "what's
this? "

" The end," said Velantrie sharp as a shot, " for
one of us."

He put out a hand and caught a table near.

"Shoot me," he said again in that rapid way,
"as you did my father — ^you damned murderer!
Take The Comet as you took ^" But John Han-

>208 VAL OF PABADISE

non's finger jerked before the word was done and
once again the big gun spoke — spoke with the intent
of death and silence for that rushing tongue. But
fate and justice seemed to favour Hunnewell's, for
on that instant Val from behind caught her father's
shoulder, just as she had caught the blond boy's,
and swung him out of line. Her face stood where
his had been a second before and filled Velantrie's
vision with its likeness to that other.

Feature for feature and line for line it was the
same! Woman-soft where the other was eagle-
keen, its long eyes smiling where those were hard as
flint — ^it was the same yet not the same! In that
first strained look Velantrie knew why Val Han-
non's face had puzzled him so long !

In awe and tragic wonder they stood for a sec-
ond, staring tensely, these two who loved each
other to the foundations of their souls. Then Vel-
antrie, his face like the death she had again
averted, groped blindly for a firmer hold on the
table and swayed upon his feet. His blue eyes
were piteous, his lips drawn with the monstrous
knowledge that was his.

Then that great goodness which was in his heart,
which Val had dimly felt, and which made him
friends among the children and the dogs, rose out
of its depths of sin and bitterness and glorified
him, all unknowingly.

" I beg your — ^pardon," he said as if from a great
distance, ^^ gentlemen — I was mistaken. This i
not — ^my man."

THE FACE IN THE DOORWAY 209

Then he crumpled like a broken reed and went
down in a heap.

With a cry Val Hannon sprang in among the
stirring men^ snatched his fallen head and raised
it to her breast.

" Val," murmured Velantrie and said no more.

<< Velantrie ! " screamed the girl, unconscious of
the staring crowd, " Oh, Donald ! "

Then her father's hand was on her shoulder,
lifting her bodily, a dozen other hands pulled the
man away from her, and in the flurry that followed
she found herself swung helplessly into her saddle,
the reins put in her fingers.

^^ Bide," said John Hannon beside her, and she
rode — ^but the earth and the heavens tumbled about
her and twice in the silent journey, when he did
not deign to look back where danger certainly
lurked in that bunch of men who followed Velan-
trie, the Boss of Paradise had to steady his
daughter in her saddle.

Not one word did he ask her, then or after, about
the whole affair, but put her in her own bed with
his own hands and bade the women leave her alone,
saying that she had had a turn and w^d be better
soon.

CHAPTER XIX

THS BLACK RUSTLES RIDES

BUT the boss was mistaken. Val was not bet-
ter soon. For three days she lay in her bed
in the deep sonth room and scarcely knew
day from darkness. Belle was terribly distressed
and begged both her and John for explanation, but
from the one she got only moans and silence^ from
the other the brisk assurance that something must
have happened to one of the girl's friends in Lean-
dra to upset her — " maybe th' Texas boy's got him
another girl an' Val heard it/' he said, and Belle,
though she did not believe, must needs be sat-
isfied.

Through Val's poor brain there wound a tum-
bling train of thoughts, any one of which was cause
tor despair.

Was Velantrie dead? Was her father's bullet
fatal? And why had John Hannon shot him, at
sight — without a second's pause — for all the world
as if he had been prepared to do it when he mounted
the steps ! Why had he looked so strangely at the
Redstar's double — ^with that awful excitement in
his eyes?

It was as if — as if — she swallowed the lump in
her throat that choked her — ^as — ^if he recognized
the horse !

210

THE BLACK BUSTLER RIDES 211

She shuddered, and closed her eyes and her brain
against the thought, opened them both again and
fell to the same desperate thinking. She was cold
with fear, numb and sick with sorrow.

If Velantrie was dead — ^Ah, Mother Mary ! Never
in this world would she see sunlight and shadow,
mesa and plain again with the old sweet joy. Life
would be dead in her, like the ashes of a burnt-out
fire.

But she was young and magnificently healthy —
and she had the courage of her father's blood.
Therefore she rose and came forth to confront
the household with haggard eyes and cheeks that
had thinned overnight, it seemed^ — ^to find the riders
tense and silent, her mother sad with the old lone-
liness, for the boss was gone again. Once more
had the far country called him and he had an-
swered — answered on the hour, with his eagle eyes
alight, his nostrils flaring.

A mighty relief let loose the br^th in Val's
breast, for she did not want to face her father. If
Velantrie was dead — Oh, how her soul wavered
at the unspoken words! — ^if — he — ^was dead, she
knew in the depths of her being that she could never
forgive the hand that had done the trick, never look
into those hard dark eyes again without black and
everlasting hatred in her own.

No matter what he was — ^bandit — ^lifter — Black
Rustler himself — Velantrie was her man and she
was his woman with all that meant of blind fidelity,
of faith and the fighting right to stand by.

212 YAL OF PARADISE

The riders were horrified at her appearance and
silence fell npon them to a man — ^for Perly had
been to Santa Leandra and learned the whole affair.
'And Briston had fonnd the answer to his pnzzle.
He knew now what and who had lit the glow that
had shone in Val's sweet face for all these many
weeks. If it sent a wistfnl pain to his own heart
he thought of his years and the good friendship
which was, and would always be between him and
the Pride of Paradise, and was content. And he
b^an casting about in his mind — see how Love
serves its own — ^f or a way to avert the tragedy that
impended when the Black Bustler shoiUd again
ride in the rangeland, and the ranchers should ride,
too.

And then Val came to him where he smoked
alone in the patio under the stars, and put a hand
upon his shoulder. Briston dropped his cigarette
and reached up to take the hand in his, to hold it
between his two big palms in the comforting silence
of perfect understanding.

And Val, heavy-eyed with tears, sank down on
the bench beside him and put her forehead where
the hand had been. More than one soft head had
rested on Briston's shoulder in the many years of
his roving, but none that so pulled at his heart as
this drooping black one.

Therefore he sat still and waited as the perfect
friend waits. Presently, with a sigh, the girl said,
'' Tom.'^

"Yes, Val-"

THE BLACK BUSTLER BIDES 213

"Will you— can you — find out — ^if Velan-
trie »

" Don't need to find out. Perly was in town a
day or two back-an' they said at Hunnewell's that
his men picked him up an' took him off, swung
across that horse of his with a man to help him
ride, an' that he was comin' round then. Old Doc
Tackert happened to be there that day an' he looked
him over before they left an' said he was not seri-
ously hurt. Th' ball went in on th' left side close
above th' heart," — Val shuddered against him —
" you know, it seems he was a little to th' right an'
— an' — John was in th' door, so th' shot was
glancin', like. It hit a rib an' tore right round it
to th' back an' out. It was th' stroke of th' bullet,
so close against th' heart, that knocked him out.
Th' shock, you know. He'll be all right in a matter
of days, a man like him— hard as nails. He'll come
round all right."

^^ Dios gracids!^^ whispered Val against his
shoulder and Briston felt the whole tightening of
her body, the seeming of new life and strength that
tingled in her at his blessed words. She straight-
ened up and pressed his hand and a great breath
fluttered on her lips, a sigh of such relief as only
words of life can bring. Thus love served its own
in Briston's heart and made him glad at her

joy.

But trouble was on Paradise and no mistake.
The whole crowd was distressed to the bottom of
their adoring souls that their Val, their Pride of

214 VAL OF PABADISE

Paradise, had shown the world of Santa Leandra
her interest in the Black Bustler ! It would be on
every tongue in the rangeland — and what compli-
cations might not arise from it! Into what sin-
ister inferences of association between Paradise
and the Black Bustler's band would it not be con-
strued!

And they were right. Talk was stirring in every
nook and comer. Clendenning heard of the afifair
and studied it from every angle, and finally came
clear with his faith untarnished.

" Nobody knows what a girl will feel for a hand-
some man," he said gamely, " but I'd stake on John
Hannon. He shot him, didn't he?"

" Yes," they argued back, " but what'd th' Bus-
tler say? Accused Hannon of killin' his father an'
takin' somethin' which he didn't specify. Knew
each other, didn't they? Been together sometime,
hadn't they?"

But Clendenning shook his head.

" I stake on John," he said.

So the rangeland drowsed. The Indian Summer
passed and the first breath of frost came 4own
upon the land, turning its sparse green to brown.
The fall round-up loomed on the horizon — and the
boss was still away. Briston watched things and
persons with anxious eyes — ^and he did not let Jo86
out of range, day or night.

Val was her old self, busy, efficient, save for a
new gravity, a strong repression that was with her

THE BLACK BUSTLER BIDES 215

always. She went often to Befngio, hoping against
hope for word of Velantrie, but Father Hillair6 was
helpless to give it her. The oblivion of the Border
had swallowed him at last, and deep in his wise old
heart the priest hoped that it would keep him.
Dear as the boy was to him the girl was dearer.
Belle was planning her little pretty changes
against her husband's coming — a new table for his
pipe and books this time, a little new tune, made
up entirely from her own fancies and worked out
by her clever fingers, a cushion for his particular
chair.

And far in the Blind Trail Hills poor Bed-
star ran his endless circle, called at the twilights,
tore at the saplings and ate out his heart, while far
across the miles his beloved answered that unheard
cry.

One by one the days went by and nothing new
stirred in the cattle country. It was hard on driv-
ing time and Briston was wishing fervently for the
boss. Other outfits would be at the round-up and
he must needs send riders here and there to look
out for the interests of Paradise, as they would
send to him, and he did not like to spare any of his
men. Why, he scarcely knew, but it was so. He did
not leave the home ranch himself these times when
Hannon was away, and there was plenty to see to,
indeed.

The boys were overhauling the chuck-wagon,
looking to saddles and ropes. The feeling of fall
was in the air.

216 VAL OP PARADISE

And then came a nighty soft and dark with many
stars in the early hours and with promise of a great
white moon very late.

It was one of the few nights left in the lap of
summer from which the warmth was spilling fast^
and Val swung in the fringed hammock and talked
in a low voice with the men. Briston smoked on
his accustomed bench, Siff and Rosy lounged on the
hard dry earth, their slim young figures relaxed,
while Dirk and Perly shared another hammock
nearer to Bluewater.

Out by the bunk-house one of the vaqueroa
strummed an old guitar and sung a Spanish love-
song in a voice like a harp. At a window of the
darkened kitchens Fanita listened. Inside the
adobe house Belle Hannon, to whom all night was
day, all day night, played softly her plaintive
tunes. Never in her after life could Val bear to
hear such music in the dark.

She talked in broken sentences with Briston,
looking up at the stars. A thousand things moiled
through her mind and she gave them voice, secure
in the loving friendship that encompassed her.

" Tom,'^ she said, " I asked dad once what con-
stituted a good man — ^and he said ^a brave on^
quick on the trigger.* WTiat would you say?"

The foreman smoked silently a while. Then he
knocked the ash from his cigarette.

"A good man, Val," he said, "is the man who
deals squarely by his fellows an' has such honest
love of humanity in his heart that he can help th'

THE BLACK BUSTLER RIDES 217

helpless, even at risk of his neck — sneh love for one
woman that he can serve her all his life, either re-
warded or unrewarded-r-a man who can sacrifice.^'

What gentle intent was in the speaker's mind
only he knew, and he said no more. But Val had
instant food for thought — as perhaps he had in-
tended.

Help the helpless! Ah — ^it was Velantrie who
did that — at risk of his neck, literally — who robbed
the rich in that cruel country across the line to
give to the poor — ^who hunted among the jcLcals for
the deserter that he might bring him and happi-
ness to poor Maria. ... A sick longing to see
the face that made her think of light behind a cur-
tain came over her and she bit her lip, suddenly
tremulous. . . . Belle's sweet music, now — ^it
made her heart ache with a nameless grief, a pre-
sentiment of sorrow that is old as human blood.
. . . And the golden voice of the vaquero, faint
in the night. How they made her feel the mon-
strous might of life, the futility of all human plans,
all loves, all priceless things of this earth!

And then, sudden as a shot in the silence, came
the voice of Perly from the other hammock.

"Tom," it cried sharply, "look there! An'
there ! — an' yonder ! "

With a spring the boy was on his feet, a slim
shape, straight in the dusk.

" Good God ! " he cried again, " th' signal-fires !
Boys — th' Rustler rides tonight ! "

Without another word he flung himself from the

218 VAL OF PABADISE

patio and they heard the sound of his nmning feet
as he went toward the corrals. True enough. From
down at the south where El Bancho Bio lay on the
skyline there rose on the still dark a tall pillar of
flame that was already answered from the south-
west and the west.

Tom Briston stood tense, reading thdr me6sage&

" Baid," the one fire said, " at the flying Y/'

He turned and looked west.

" We circle south," three red flares said.

Southeast two signals placed far apart told the
rangeland, "We ride north," and beside the tall
fire at the south two small ones close together bore
Clendenning's faithful promise.

" We'll close in on the Blind Trail pass from the
south."

Thus was a net formed, a trap laid, and anything
driving within its circle had best ride fast for the
pass — for the horses of the plains would soon be
out. And they were hard to beat, those horses that
had run at Santa Leandra. Dollar, the gallant grey
with the dapples on his hip — Silkskin, swift as
waters flowing, black and wild — and all of Han-
non's Bed Brood that stamped in the home corrals
— for the ranchers were pledged to this and all
must go.

With one accord the cowboys followed Perly,
shouting, snatching spur and bridle as they ran —
the guitar out at the bunk-house ceased its strum-
ming, stopped by a flattening hand on its strings— «
the vaqueros ran to the horses too.

THE BLACK BUSTLER RIDES 219

Only Briston was left for a moment standing in
the patio. A gasp caught his ear-— a deep, short
breath that seemed to come from drowning lungs —
and Val ^annon stood beside him, swaying on her
feet like a drunkard.

^^Tom/' she gasped, still as if she could not
breathe, " Tom — ^my friend ^^

Briston caught her tightly in the bend of his arm
and looked into her face that shone white in the
dark like a moon in fog.

" Yes, Val darling,'^ he said.

" If ^^ Again that awful gapping breath.

The girl gripped her hands, steadied her swaying
body with the old sweet strength. Then the words
came a bit more strongly.

" If — they catch the — Black Rustler this night —
don't — don't let — them — the Crag Oak "

She wet her lips that were stifiE and cold — reached
out a groping hand and touched the gun that
always hung at the foreman's belt.

" Shoot — him, Tom," she said thickly, " straight
— -jah ! " — ^it was a sighing breath — ** in — the — fore-
head — for me ! "

^^ I will," said Briston and was gone.

CHAPTER XX

^^ GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN "

TBAOEDT breathed npon the rangeland
Father Hillair^ felt it, pacing in his dry gar-
den and counting his beads. He was think-
ing of Velantrie's soul.

Belle Hannon felt it and ceased her plaintive
playing. She came, sure of foot in the darkness,
to the east door that opened into the patio.

« Val ! " she caUed.
' The girl, clinging to the trunk of the Cottonwood
tree that stood above Bluewater, while she tried to
beat her heart to bravery and hope, essayed three
times to answer that call. Always when her mother
spoke she must reply, for she was that rare and
perfect thing, a true and loving daughter. But her
numb lips would not frame a word, her dry throat
worked up and down soundlessly. Then she shook
herself together by a supreme effort.

" Yes, Belle dear," she said.

" Eh? " said Belle, instantly alarmed, " what's the
matter, Val?"

And Val answered, as she must, though the words
seemed to tear out of her stifling heart

" Signal-fires," she said, " that say — the Bustler's
—out!"

'^ Great goodness ! " said Belle^ ** Thank Heaven

220

^' OBEATEB LOVE HATH NO MAN '' 221

'—at last ! 'And Boyce Clendenning rides, of coarse.
Oh, how I wish John were here! But Boyce will
do the trick if it is possible. Let's hope it is,"

The girl by the Cottonwood looked at her
mother with strained and piteous eyes. Then she
dragged her body forward and took the reaching
hand.

" I think I'U go to bed," said Belle; " good-night,
dear."

Val leaned and kissed her, listened dully to her
steps returning into the house.

Then she, too, entered and groped her way, more
blindly than Belle had ever done, into the far depths
of her own south room.

She stumbled among the rugs, traversed its great
length as in a dream, and fell upon her knees before
the life-size statue of the Virgin Mary that stood in
an alcove beyond the ancient bed. Upon the waxen
feet on the pedestal above her she laid her no less
waxen face and fell to praying asi she had never
prayed in all her life — ^for the soul of the Black
Bustler.

And far away in the shadowed levels the Black
Bustler himself played his last great game. A mad
delight was in his heart, the daring and reckless
courage that had marked him on the Border rode
high in him — ^like a wind whipping a prairie fire.
It whipped him to strong deeds, to the fine point
of the long odds, to the joy of beating the ranchers
by the width of a hair. He rode a horse upon whose^

222 VAL OP PABADISB

gallantry he could depend — ^though there was one
other he had rather had beneath him — and by his
side rode his aid and lieutenant^ companion of an
hundred night-rides, a huge bulk of a man on a
powerful, raw-boned horse.

It was not fat steers they took this night, neither
anything that a man might need, but something
to cut the loser with a lash of chagrin and rage —
namely Black Princess, the fine young mare of
whom the Flying Y had boasted much for this
year's races. Gentle-hearted, tractable, the Prin-
cess ran between their running horses, making for
the distant pass into the Blind Trail Hills, and the
risinjg note of their speed proved that there was
something in her, that the boasts had had founda-
tion.

From time to time the Black Bustler rose in his
stirrups and scanned the world around with its
spires of flame upon the darkness, and at each sight
he whooped with a mad laughter and struck a fist
upon his pommel.

"Their little fires!" he cried, "thdr horses!
Their cocksure faith! While th' Black Rustler
rides out of their net like an eel ! "

But their little fires covered a further readiness
than he could know, their faith was solid as a rock
— for many men were far along the sides of the net
before the fires were set, and some of them had
known for three days that the Black Princess was
to go tonight ! In fact the pass was guarded by five
men in the shadow of the clifF, their six-guns wait-

'' GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN '' 223

ing — ^and some one carried a good rope at his sad-
dlebow.

For old Dame Fate was pleased to make a play in
the rangeland — and her bells were set to ring on
the Bustler's number.

So time passed and Val on her knees, her pale
hands gripping the Virgin's robes, her lips like
ashes and her dark eyes dull with agony, could not
count the hours.

Belle slept in her distant room like a healthy
child and all Paradise was silent as the dead, save
for the murmur of Bluewater in the patio and a
night bird calling from the trees. The fires on the
skyline died down — and the net drew in its miles-
wide circle.

There were more horses afoot in the plains that
night than any rider knew. For instance — a
spotted pinto pony, like a ghost in the dark — and a
great red horse with a shadow on his shoulders. *
These two met, by chance, where the Little Ante-
lope cut down to its ford beyond Befugio— and
there was a peal of vixen laughter, a taunt and a
smaU Bst shaken to the stars. The man on the stal-
lion caught his breath, thought swiftly, and swore
a low-toned oath.

For a while he sat where the flying pinto left
him, in the lee of the cottonwoods, thinking as
swiftly as he had ever thought in all his vivid life.
Then he drew a hand across his eyes and rode
through the shallow waters to Befugio.

And beyond the pass in the Blind Trail HiUs

224 VAL OP PABADISE

something was happening — something yital, that
would have to do with the play that was coming —
for that top sapling in the hidden glade, long
thinned and bending, gave at last beneath the wor-
rying teeth, bent farther yet to the push of a broad
bay breast — and the ends let go from their cut
slots in the wall !

With a hoarse scream the Redstar, feeling the
barrier give, pushed, felt of the remaining height
with his bending neck — and whirled from the gate
to tear away up the level floor.

Far in the centre he turned, leaned forward,
poised, then stretched away in full flight toward the
lowered bars.

It was still a splendid hurdle, enough to tax his
full strength and brain, but beyond it lay the
sounding cafions, the pass, the open plains — and —
the sweet green fields of home! Home — and the
calling voice of his beloved — ^with the sweet scents
in her hair — the feel of love in her caressing hands !

Like a wind upon a hill — ^like a kite above a
cloud — like a bird that skims a prairie — the Red-
star took the gate ! Free ! Free as the winds that
sucked up the gorge, as the untrammelled waters !

He flung up his great head, his soft eyes shining
like fox-fire, and with his mouth open and scream-
ing his joy to all the silent walls, the Redstar went
down the cut — for home!

The late white moon was rising. At Refugio
Father Hillaire sat in the darkness of his garden

" GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN " 225

with his head upon his hands. His heart was dark
with sorrow as the garden with its shades. What
it was that bore so heavily upon him he could not
have said. Yet he knew, so sensitive and mysteri-
ous is the loving heart, that the time of tragedy
had come. He had prayed until his soul was dry of
prayer. Now he waited, bowed upon his table, on
the mercy of the Lord.

And the Black Rustler, his horse's feet soft-
padded, rode for the guarded pass hilariously. But
he, too, was keen as the seventh sense. He, too, felt
a mystery in the night that he had never felt. Safe
enough yet, he stopped his headlong flight, his
strong hands on lead-rope and rein, rose in his stir-
rups and listened.

"By !" he said, "there's danger at th*

pass ! "

"Why? " asked the big man beside him.
. " Don't know," he answered briefly.

Without a second's loss he turned and rode
toward the south.

" Where? " asked the other man again.

" Between th' Flyin' Y an' El Rancho Rio."

But when a half -hour had passed and they were
far down in the open levels, once again the leader
stopped and glanced this way and that. He raised
his head like a hound at fault and sniffed the cool-
ing air. And just at that moment a gunshot cracked
far to the west — another farther away — one round
toward the north —

226 yAL OP PABADISB

Bark — ^bark — ^bark — ^like the answering of the
pack when the leader signals ^^ f onnd." A ring of
speaking shots — sign that, with qnarry scented, the
net was closing down.

The first cold fear stmck into the Bustler's
heart. He raised his head yet higher and listened
in every quarter. Then he laughed again — but it
was different laughter. Brief, hollow, full of a mad
excitement. He sobered and held out his hand to
the man beside him.

" We've had many a ride together," he said, " an'
it's ben a great life — th' best in its line — such a life
as no other two men on this Border have ever lived.
But I think it's done at last. This was to have ben
th' best, th' most brilliant — th' high watermark
of all. Shake, old man. An' — ^good-bye. Turn th'
damn mare loose — an' ride — ^if there's any way to'
ride that these damn ranchers " — ^there was savage
hatred in his voice — " ain't covering."

He wrung the hand of the silent man, who could
not speak it seemed, and was away.

At Paradise Val prayed, scarce conscious of the
words that trailed across her lips. Sometimes it
was a mixture of the words of the Salve Regina —
" Hail, Holy Queen — Mother of Mercy — our life —
our sweetness and our hope ! . . . Pray for ns,
Oh, Holy Mother of God!" and again the Litany
of the Blessed Virgin with its adoration, and she
did not know that for every " us " she substituted
« him."

" GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN " 227

And at that hour, when the world seemed light-
ening with the rising moon, while Val prayed in
anguish, while the Black Rustler rode away on his
last great lap alone — Father Hillaire rose trem-
bling to stand in the gate and grasp Velan-
trie's hand. ^^ Padre^^ said the man simply,
" I've come back — ^to the Church door — and to
you."

"Red?" asked the priest with ineffable sorrow
in his voice.

" No. White, I hope. As white as I can ever be.
I am in haste, father — ^great haste — ^and I need you.
Always I have needed you, it seems — ^but more than
ever now."

He spoke rapidly and Father Hillaire drew him
into the moonlight that he might look into his face
with yv arning eyes.

It was thinned a bit and paler.

"The wound?"

"Better. Almost well. It was nothing — a
scratch. I've had many worse. But — ^he was the
man, padre — ^you know that."

"How well!" said the other, "and for how
long!"

" So? And you did not tell me? "

They were speaking in the elemental, as if it was
the time for all hopes, all dissimulations, to be laid
aside.

"No. Whysho\ildI?"

" True. You were my friend."

Velantrie laid his arm on the shoulders under the

!228 VAL OP PABADISE

shabby cassock that seemed bowing under an invM-
ble weight.

" Be my friend now, padre/^ he said, and there
was a wistful tone in the rich voice that vibrated
like a string, ^^ I am in great haste but I want
something."

" Ask," said the priest simply.

" I am no Catholic — I am nothing in that line —
but, father — I am about to die I think. If I might
ask — if you would

'^ Such comfort as you have for lost souls, padre
— give it me."

Father Hillaire wet his lips.

'^ Die? " he asked stiffly, " how, my son? "

" The Black Rustler rides tonight — ^into a trap,
set and prepared by that little arch-fiend, Lolo San-
chez — I met her but now by the Little Antelope —
who thought it was I who would spring it. For
her sake — ^you know — ^for her sweet sake — ^well — ^it
is I who shall spring the trap, padre, if I can beat
him in, and no one will be the wiser. Ton know I
have the Rustler's fame about me anyway. . . •
Can you give me comfort, father dear? "

The old priest lifted his face and never in his
long, hard life had it been so glorified, so furrowed
with its tears.

" * Greater love hath no man than this, that he
giveth his life for his friend,* " he said tremulously,
** come."

And for the first time Velantrie, ^^ sometime of
the Border," stepped to the little side door of the

« GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN " 229

Mission^ bowed his bare black head and entered.
Father Hillaire lighted a taper on the altar and
closed the doors,
yelantrie knelt with his face toward the light.

CHAPTER XXI

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISB

THE net was drawing in — drawing in. Not a
man on that far-flung line knew it so well as
the Black Bustler himself who rode with
muffled hoofs inside the net, sweeping this way and
that, listening, feeling for the unseen foe. His
brain, always keen and calculating, counted the
ranches and the probable men from each, the dis-
tance they would be from their various starting
places by now. To the northwest he went — but he
knew they were there. To the north he tried to go
— but he felt them coming there — ^from Paradise —
the riders on the fleet Red Brood. Then he swung
in a wide arc toward the Blind Trail Hills, but left
them eastward and pushed north again — ^for there
was no ranch between Paradise and the cliffs. It
was a far cry, that way, however, and he would
likely meet the men from the two outflts that lay
farther north yet — ^for this vast net was perfect.
He had known it would be. What he had not
known, was this — that it had been warned and
almost wholly set to its pattern hours before the
fires were lighted. Now, in some flash of that illum-
inating seventh sense that had saved his skin so
many times before, he knew that the die was cast —
that he had played his last great game and failed.

230

SOME TO THE FIELDS OP PARADISE 231

So he laid the rein on his horse's neck — that
same and splendid runner on whom he had always
said he would " stake a lot," and rode for the one
thing dearer to him than life or anything on this
earth — the untarnished love of his wife.

Bode from east to west inside the net, directly
across the path of the riders from the north.

The cottonwoods in the patio cast long blac^
shadows on the ranch-house wall. Paradise was
still as death.

Belle in her deep chamber did not hear the sound
of muffled feet that struck the flags by the spring —
nor Val, half lost to all consciousness before the
Virgin Mary. They were, alas ! slow feet and stum-
bling, for poor Lightning had run as he had never
run before— had covered killing miles at a killing
pace, had shown that " something by-ordinary " in
him of which his master had sometimes spoken.
Now he stumbled in beside the spring and stopped
with his head hanging and the breath whistUng
in his sides.

The man in his saddle flung off his back and en-
tered with a soundless step the darkened house.
On the sill he stopped and cast one proud high look
at the patio, sharp in its light and shadow, at the
sweeping fields below, at the corrals and all
the buildings lying so peacefully in the silent
night.

"Th' best in its line," he muttered under his
breath, " th' best in its line — ^always,"

232 YAL OP PABADISB

'A moment later Belle Hannon stirred in her sleep
and said softly, " John."

The man who stood beside the bed reached down
and touched her gently.

" Belle — sweetheart," he said, " I'm here."

Instantly she was awake, was up and clinging to
him, her arms about his neck, her lips against his
face. Little fluttering laughter was in her broken
words, she quivered with the sudden ecsta^ of his
living presence.

"Home again!" she cried softly^ "Oh, John!
My man ! "

John Hannon sat down on the bed's edge and
drew her close upon his heart, smoothing the soft
hair from her temples. He reached and drew a
curtain, letting in a flood of the moonlight that he
might the better see her face.

" Belle darling," he said, " do you love me? "

The woman laughed.

" Love you? I think I adore you, John — ^the best
husband, the noblest man I ever knew. Yes," she
added soberly, "may God forgive me, I think it's
more than love."

"Have I made you happy, little woman?
Always?"

"Always, my beloved. But why this serious
talk? — and just at your return when we are always
so foolishly happy? "

"I have a desire to know," he said.

" Then know — ^that never a man in this world but
you could have made heaven on earth for a blind

HOME TO THE FIELDS OP PARADISE 233

woman — ^woold have been the heart and soul of
honour in all his dealings with her. Would have
been so patient, so tender, so kind and withal so
true. Oh, John, you are — ^next to God to me.'^

John Hannon loosed one arm from about her,
drawing her nearer with the other, and his fingers
slipped softly to the gun hanging at his hip.

" Now let me confess," he said lightly, " come
in with th' responses in this here litany we're sayin\
You have ben, an^ are, th* only star in my sky, th*
light of my universe. I love you better than any-
thing I possess — ^lands, money, horses or our one
child. Better than all. Are you happy ? *'

" Happy ! " murmured Belle. " Ah ! Happy ! "

The man bent his head above her, put his lips to
hers in one long kiss. The hand came up from the
holster, the blue gun with it. Both were steady as
a rock. The wondrous courage that had marked
the Black Rustler on the Border met its greatest
test and did not flinch.

Slowly, carefully, the muzde rose, picking its
way more surely than ever before. There must be
no bungle here, no slightest slip. Inch by inch it
crept up along Belle Hannon's throat, her fair
cheek — reached her white temple and halted, just
opposite the spot where the soft curls lay. The
dark eyes of the man burned on her face in one
long yearning look.

And then Val Hannon, duU in her trance of
anguish, heard a shot that boomed in the silent
house most monstrously — another that followed on

234 VAL OP PARADISE

its heels. She drew her body from the steps of tKe
pedestal, rose slowly to her feet She passed a
hand across her eyes, shook herself as if to clear
the shadows from her brain.

Shots !

Something — something had happened!

Then she seemed to come ont of her own aban-
donment of suffering with a jerk, to gather her own
keen wits. Almost instantly she was John Han-
non's daughter, strong, alert, ready, though she
trembled with foreboding as she passed through the
shadowed house toward her mother's room. In the
living-room she met Fanita, half-clad and fright-
ened, coming from the servants' quarters.

" What is it, sefiorita?" whispered the girl.

"Shots," said Val, thickly, "oh— shots!''

At the threshold of that closed room she stopped^
sick to her soul with fear. Then she raised a reso-
lute hand and struck the panels.

"Belle!" she called clearly, "Belle dear!"

There was no sound and again she called. Still
that awful silence. Val Hannon, as her father
would have done, opened the door and entered.

In the bright square of moonlight from the win-
dow John Hannon lay with his wife upon his
breast, still with majestic peace — and his gun lay
smoking in his loosened hand, while on his face
there stood out, stark in the moon-glow, a broad
black velvet mask!

Val stood in the doorway looking down and the
heart in her breast was stopped. When it laboured

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PABADISE 235

on again she relaxed her hold on the lintel and slid
weakly down along the wall. The room and its
ghastly wreck was whirling.

She saw her mother's smiling face — ^the temple
beneath the cnrls. She saw her father's uncovered
iron-grey head, which there was no mistaking. She
saw the revolver and the mask.

And then Val Hannon knew. The Black Bus-
tler ! Ah ! The Boss of Paradise ! The net — and
the signals! ^

How long she sat crouched by the doorway she
did not know. She heard Fanita crying and the
feet of the women running, knew that dark terror-
stricken faces filled the door behind her. And she
knew that those two in the square of moonlight
were dead — gone together into that vast unknown
which waits the human soul.

Gone — her dad whose pride and power in the
rangeland were unbounded — ^her mother with her
high spirit and her splendid faith. Gone — the love,
and the pride, and the power! Gone in darkness
and dishonour, in sin and arrogance! But — gone
together, these two who had loved so grandly, and
who must still love!

The Black Bustler! Before her burning eyes
there came a train of incidents and events, like
those changing figures in a kaleidoscope. The talk
with Velantrie on the rim of Mesa Grande — the
description of the horses that tallied so sharply —
the story of the masked riders and the camp in
Mexico— four years ago I

236 VAL OP PABADISE

Four years ago John Hannon brought the Red-
star home! The day at HnnneweU's — ^the shots —
and the words ^^ kill me as yon killed my father, yon
damned murderer! Take The Comet as yon

took " Then her hand on John Hannon's

shoulder, her face where his had been, the awful
look on Velantrie's face, and the muttered words
" I — was mistaken — this is — not — my man."

Oh ! Holy Mother ! What a monstrous web was
this! And death to crown it all — ^the only way!
The only way! Yes — since Boyce Clendenning —
her father's friend, the man her mother trusted to
catch the Black Rustler — ^was at the head of that
deadly net!

She heard the voices of the women talking in
high hysteria — a horse's hoofs sharp on the stones
outside — and Fanita speaking in her ear.

"Oh, seQorita," it was begging, "come quick to
the patio! There is one who rides with news
and who will not be denied! Come, SeSorita
Val ! ''

Dully the girl drew herself up along the door-
post, closed the door upon the room. News? What
mattered news? But from force of habit she, who
had always answered all comers to Paradise in the
master's absence, went stupidly out with Fanita's
arms about her to guide her steps.

In the white light there stood a stranger. Or,
hold — not quit^ a stranger. It was that slim boy
whom Velantrie had brought, a long day back, to
Father Hillair6 at Refugio — Mesos Pecuento.

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 237

He stood holding a dripping horse and his breath
came fast.

" SeBorita," he said, speaking swiftly in Spanish,
" I come because Maria wept and would not cease.
She says that one you love rides into a trap of
death, set to catch another. That Father Hillair6
gave him comfort for the end in the Mission — ^was
giving it when I left — ^for Maria, watching, did not
wait for the finish. She sends you word that this —
one — covers his face with a bit of black from the
padr&8 torn cassock — and rides a horse — a great
red horse — like one you know — ^into the trap by
the Blind Trail Pass — to save your heart from hurt.
But Maria says that you — ^know love — and that the
horses of Paradise are fleet. That only you can
save him — from the Crag Oak — because the Black
Bustler is "

" Stop ! " cried Val, white-lipped, " I know ! "

She stood swaying uncertainly, while the full
import of the tumbling speech sank into her mind
and heart.

One— Velantrie— rode— to the trap by the Blind
Trail Pass — knowing — He rode a great red
horse — such as that dim tradition of the Border
ascribed to the Black Rustler — ^its damning double.
He covered his face with a bit of the padre^a cassock
— Ah, what friends ! What lovers, these two— the
bandit and the priest !

That relentless net, drawing in, would catch him
— and the rest was sure.

Those two in the moon-lighted room — ^they might

238 VAL OF PABADISE

sleep at Paradise forever, secure in their honour
and their fame ! Her name and her father's would
be forever clear — at the price of one bandit's life,
one old priest's silence!

What a web ! What a web !

But she was her mother's daughter and never
for one moment did she think of these things, save
to make clearer the great light that was breaking.
She shook her whole young body and tightened her
nerves to action.

" Fanita," she cried, " my riding skirt ! Quick! "

To another woman she flung a word, " A horse-
lightning "

But Lightning stood a little way apart, done and
drooping. Every ounce there was in him he had
given his master in that last great ride.

" Then Red " But Bedcloud, too, was b^ond

her reach. There was nothing left in the corrals
of all the matchless racers, nothing to serve her in
her need.

Then did Val Hannon lose for a moment her
faith and her sanity and all the good courage that
had stood by her in these awful days.

" Gone ! " she screamed, " all gone ! He rides the
best horse in the rangeland — and I have none!
Death will catch him first ! "

She flung her arms to the lighted skies and her
face had lost its beauty. It was pinched and drawn,
the lips curled from the teeth.

''Oh, Redstar! Bedstar! If I just had
you ! "

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 239

And half anconscions of what she did, her very
reason whirling, she cupped her hands and sent
pealing out upon the silence the piercing whistle
of the two notes, one rising, one falling, that had
been wont to bring the racer to her in the old days.
Far and bye it carried in the stillness, far out along
the levels, like a clarion call for help.

And hark ! What was that, faint and fine in the
distance, that answered like its echo? The ringing
call of a horse — ^a running horse — ^that shook with
speed and rhythm ! The shrill high challenge of —
nay, it could not be the king ! Yet the girl's heart
stopped to listen.

Again she called — and again it came — ^that keen,
high neighing !

" Lord God in Heaven ! " said Val Hannon.

She held her breath. Along the plain there came
a sound — a sound for which, all these weary
months, she had waited with a faith that could not
die — the long-roll of the great king's feet, like
which there was none other !

For Bedstar, the king, came back to Paradise!
Came in strength and joy, like winds and waters
flowing, leaving behind him the walled-in glade, the
slipping miles, and five astonished watchers at the
pass who had seen a riderless horse shoot by them
like a rocket !

The girl at the patio^a edge leaned forward,
straining her eyes to the lighted levels. Up along
the open way he came, a marvellous sight ! Level as
a bolt, running like the wind, his sounding feet a

240 VAL OP PABADISE

blur beneath him, the great clond of his mane flow-
ing back upon his shoulders, his long tail stream-
ing — Oh, the king — ^the king ! — came home to Para-
dise!

He skirted the fenced-in fields where he had
grazed in peace, and came straight to the patio with
its sentinel cottonwoods. His great hoofs pounded
on the ringing stones, he stopped with a slide and
plunge, and his soft eyes shone like fox-fire, his
nostrils shook with the eager whinnyings that came
deep from his chest and would not cease.

Val Hannon fiung herself upon him, dung
to his high-arched neck, panting with the emo-
tions of the hour which were almost too deep to
bear.

And Redstar stretched his eager nose and smelled
her over from head to foot, sniffed at her hair,
nibbled her arm, her shoulder and her fluttering
hands. He was home again after weary exile —
and this was his beloTed! His beloved by sight
and the truer proof of scent, and he was beside him-
self with joy. The whinnying continued in his
throat, he stepped and pushed and nudged the girl
who clung against his breast. . . .

And then Fanita came running with a riding
skirt — old Juana was dragging the saddle from
Lightning's back.

" Quick ! " panted Val, " a bridle, too ! "

It had been long, long since the Bedstar had
borne either, but he steadied at the familiar proc-
ess, stopped his excited whinnying.

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 241

And once again the Prides of Paradise flung out
from its shadowed patio. Once again Val felt the
mighty shoulders beneath her knees, the great mane
blowing in her face! It had come true, that dim,
instinctive prophecy that had bidden her wait with
patience.

It had come true — and in the hour of her great-
est need — the time of her dire distress. The king
was under her at last ! Redstar, the mighty !

With the first tears welling to her aching eyes
she leaned down and reached her caressing hands
along his neck.

" Sweetheart," she sobbed, " Oh, Sweetheart !
You^ve got the thing I need — ^that I have never
asked you for — the vastest speed in the rangdand !
I ask you for it now ! Run — Redstar ! — ^run ! For
a man's life ! "

And she shook the rein above him, loosened her
whole young body in the saddle, slouched forward
along his neck — and began the greatest ride that
she would ever know.

Redstar was lean and hard — as attest that deep-
worn path at the wall's foot in the hidden glade.
He had been long in that solitude. He had been
lonely and unhappy. His gentle heart had ached
with the loneliness, the cramping cliffs and the
silence. Now the great spread of the open plains
lay out before him, he felt the familiar creak and
wear of leather, the weight of a rider — and that
rider called in his ear for speed !

Speed ! Ah, yes — the great king had it ! He had

242 VAL OP PARADISE

always had it— ever since those dim days when he
had run on a smooth circle with many horses beside
— behind — him — and with cheering crowds at the
rail's edge that flowed past as he ran. He had it —
but he had not been called upon to give it lately —
not since those long mysterious rides down to the
Border with the master in the saddle. Not since
those great days when he had been wont to wait
in some thicket — at some town's border — ^for the
rush — the leap — and the getaway — ^when he lay
down to earth and left behind the rancher despoiled
— the posse — and the sheriff !

He had it — and he gave it now, in joy and glad-
ness. Val Hannon felt it spring to life in every
working muscle, in the rising hum of the drumming
feet, in the sting of the keening wind that was
beginning to flail her cheeks. For the Bedstar
lay down to earth once more — and ran — ^for a
man's life.

The girl looked round the stretching plains. Far
to the north she could see streaming dots that were
the men from the two northernmost ranches. Out
to the south she heard a shot or two — others that
answered — and knew that the huge ring was draw-
ing in.

But where in its circle was Velantrie? Had he
left Refugio yet? Others must be nearer the pass
than she. Could she cover the greater distance?
Only Redstar could answer that — and her heart
leaped as she listened to that note of his speed con-
stantly rising.

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 243

Par oflE to her left she saw dim shapes — and they
were riding in the same direction — ^all — all were
going toward that ambushed pass !

And up from Refugio^ in the southern centre of
the mighty amphitheatre, Velantrie must be riding
on The Comet ! At last, after all these years, The
Comet and The Meteor were thundering down the
land toward a common goal ! Was there anj thing
in all the rangeland that could come near them in
their pride and their endurance and their wondrous
speed? Nothing — save and except that ungainly
raw-boned horse moiling this way and that in the
narrowing net, giving its best to no avail but avert-
ing the hand of destiny as long as possible. Tragedy
rode at the raw-bone's tail and comedy as well, for
the Black Princess, swift and excited, clung to her
thief's side and would not be beaten back !

The net drew in. It had been a wide net, indeed,
and though good horses made it up, yet it had taken
toll of them. The silver Dollar under that grim and
quiet rider, Boyce Clendenning, was dark with
pouring sweat. Three miles north the beautiful
SUkskin ran with open mouth — ^but ran still
strongly — while a claybank and a pinto pony at
widely divergent points kept inside the lessening
circle.

And in the centre, leaving all comers on the
fringes, Val Hannon on Redstar swept toward the
pass — Velantrie on The Comet closed in to parallel
her, all unconsciously. This was to be the last ride,
the last great fling of Velantrie of the Border— of

244 VAL OF PARADISE

Don Quixote Velantrie, the sometime reckless rob-
ber of the rich, the champion of the poor.

As he rode he thonght of many things — and these
thoughts were sweet with comfort. He had broken
that oath, made on his father's body, and he was
traitor to his given word. But love had made him
traitor — and who in this world so good a lover as
that grand old man had been?

When they met, as Velantrie devoutly hoped
they would, it would be clean hands they struck
together, and he could carry a richer gift to show
than that black revenge he had sought so long — the
holy gift of sacrifice.

Sacrifice! The best word in the language — ^all
save love, she had said, because of love was sacrifice
born. Ah, yes. Of love was sacrifice born. Sacri-
fice to the last great end — a man's life.

She had loved him — but she loved that other, too.
Perhaps as he had loved the fine Kentucky gentle-
man. . . . Well — he trusted The Comet to
make that eastern pass first. Then — if John Han-
non rode in that circle, as he undoubtedly must, he,
Velantrie would prove the worth of those two
words — for Hannon would, for his life's sake, tear
off what disguise he might have worn — ^while he —
would wear still that little piece of the shabby cas-
sock, torn from Father Hillaire's bending knee!

At the pass three more men had joined the ambus-
cade — men from the Flying Y.
The net closed in along the clifib — from north —

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 245

from south. To the two riders sweeping eastward
in the centre, the wall of the cliffs rose dark against
the moon. Soon the long black arm of that ghastly
gallows tree, that Crag Oak, would stand gro-
tesquely against the moon ! The girl's heart ached
in her breast and she touched the stallion's neck.
It was scarcely damp.

She became conscious of a rider on her right,
going straight toward the pass. She strained her
eyes and her ears. From behind she could hear the
long-roll of running horses — drawing in — drawing
in!

Was it Velantrie? The horse beneath him seemed
vaguely familiar, though it was so far away. There
was something familiar in the way it stretched
along the plain, in the mighty streaming of its tail
upon the wind. Where had she seen this sight
before? From the top of Mesa Grande that long
past day when the unknown horseman at his band's
head had risen in his stirrups to wave his hat to
her!

That had been the beginning ! He had been her
man from that first moment, down through the
tense and tragic ones that had seemed to attend
their meetings always — down to this awful one
when he who should hate her and all hers, rode to
his death for their sake !

Nearer she leaned to the Eedstar's neck — caUed
in his ear with a panting cry — and the note of his
running rose again! But that other — ^it, too,
seemed gaining in speed ! What had Velantrie said

246 VAL OF PARADISE

once? Within two seconds of the world's record!
The two fastest horses in the southwest went neck
and neck across the plain in a monstrous race with
Death — and there was no audience to see !

The saw-tooth top of the cliff was stark against
the sky. The black gut of the pass loomed out, a
narrow streak in the face of the wall.

Nearer ! Nearer !

She could see the great horse at her right draw-
ing in toward her, narrowing the distance between !
Oh, why did not its rider look at her! Could he
not see that it was a woman who rode The Comet's
ilval?

But Velantrie did not turn. He was thinking
his last sweet thoughts — ^bidding her farewell in
the last few moments that he could call his own —
for there were riders showing now on every hand.

" Redstar ! " screamed Val above the sounding
hoofs, ^' oh, sweetheart — ^beat him in ! "

With one last great burst of speed the King of
Paradise shot magnificently forward, thrust his
reaching nose ahead of that other and thundered
up, to slide and plough the earth into flying fur-
rows, to stop at the rifles' mouth with his rider's
aims upraised, as if to guard the masked man who
slid to a stop behind.

A dozen hands were on her rein, and his — hard-
eyed and desperate faces circled them on every side
— and a mass of horsemen were thundering up
from all points.

" Th' Black Rustler ! '^ they cried as they surged

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 247

about. " We've got him, boys ! An' his lieutenant.
— ^with th' goods! Here's Black Princess doggin'
th' thief!"

Hustled forward from behind a raw-boned horse,
panting and wet, bore into the front a huge figure
of a man, swearing in fury and tearing at the for-
gotten mask upon his face.

"Two!" the voices cried, "th' two-man trick
again ! "

But Val Hannon rose in her stirrups and flung
up a tragic arm.

" Stop ! " she cried. " Stop ! "

They paid slight heed to her at first, for eager
hands were on Velantrie's rein.

"Th' horse!" they cried, "The wonderful horse!
Th' Black Bustler's horse ! Ain't no mistakin' him !
It's too well known ! "

But Val raised her own voice to a commanding
cry.

" Look ! " she cried. ^^ At mine! ^^

The tone caught the crowd and a second's silence
feU.

" Look at these two horses ! Look hard, men ! "

The crowd dropped apart a bit the better to obey.

In astounded silence they stared hard at the two
red stallions. Colour for colour — size for size —
proud head for proud head — they were the same!
Bewilderment sat upon the faces of the ranchers.

"What's this?" said Boyce Clendenning at last,
^*Miss Hannon — what is this? "

Val turned desperately to him.

248 VAL OF PARADISE

**It is that — " she caught her breath pitifnlly
and then went swiftly on, " that / ride — ^the Black
Rustler's famous horse — Redstar of Paradise ! And
that"— once more she caught her breath in that
piteous gasp-H9he who had been so proud of all
that the name of Hannon stood for — ^^ and that —
the Black Rustler himself — ^my father, gentlemen —
John Hannon, lies at home in his wife's bedroom —
with — ^with — " she choked and stopped.

Not a man in that panting circle but caught his
breath and held it in waiting horror.

"—With a bullet in his head and— with Belle
Hannon— dead upon his breast ! "

A sharp sigh cut into the tragic silence. It came
from the lips of Velantrie, sitting like stone in his
saddle.

" Too late! " he breathed. '' Too late! ''

There was a stir among the men.

"Good God!" said Boyce Clendenning, help-
lessly, " are you mad, Val? "

"No," said she, "but desperately in earnest
Ride with me to Paradise — and prove it. This
man," she turned to Velantrie and held out a steady
hand, the unshaking hand of a woman strong,
courageous to the foundations of her heart.

" This man was my father's enemy. He came to
the rangeland to find — and — ^kill him — ^for — ^for an
old score," once more she halted in the abasing of
her pride, but that deep truth and courage whipped
her on, " a hlood score, gentlonen "

" Ah ! — Hunnewell's — " some one gasped.

HOME TO THE FIELDS OP PARADISE 249

" Yes — HunnewdPs," said Val, " but John Han-
son beat him to it — he was — ^was the best shot, yon
know "

The best shot ! Yes — ^the Rustler was known all
up and^own the Border for that !

" And then — then — ^this man — ^Velantrie — ^met
me — ^in the padre's garden — and we came to love
each other."

She told it simply, in the bare stress of the
moment.

" So when he found that my father — ^his enemy
— was to ride into the trap — he took a piece of the
padre's cassock for a mask — ^and "

But her voice trailed off to silence. She was
drained dry of effort, of anything.

Oently Velantrie closed his fingers on that reach-
ing hand and came abreast of her. He pulled off
the black trifle that had covered his eyes and faced
the throng.

*^ Gentlemen," he said," may I take Miser Hannon
back to the padre at the Mission? There are women
there, and her good friend, the priest. You may
send an escort "

"No," said Boyce Clendenning with an effort,
**Val Hannon's word is plenty. Take her now.
We'll go to Paradise, Val," he finished with a heavy
pain at his loyal heart, "don't come until tomor-
row."

What Clendenning fdt at that moment only his
own heart would ever know — ^he who had succeeded
in ridding the cattle country of its enemies.

250 VAL OP PARADISE

He had succeeded better than he had planned!
He conld see the face of his friend, John Hannon —
sharp and sparkling, helping him in those very
plans — the face of that sweet blind woman — ! He
groaned aloud, unnoticed in the surging crowd that
was breaking from its spell.

With the moon above them and the black arm of
the Crag Oak reaching grotesquely for its promised
burden, Velantrie and Val Hannon turned and rode
away across the rangeland, with silence on their
lips, but with hands clasped in a love that held the
monstrous hour steady, set a light in the future to
guide their sorrow-shaken souls.

And an hour later there was nothing at the pass
— save the Crag Oak groaning with the burden that
swayed upon the breeze, a huge and heavy burden,
its bearded blond face leering in the light, for
Brideman had paid the penalty for a long life of
sin, and for trusting in a woman of Lolo Sanchez'
kind.

Lolo — ^who had sold herself to him — ^and had sold
him to the ranchers, thinking she was selling th^i
a better man as well ! Lolo — ^who sat on her pinto
pony deep in the shadow of the cliff beyond the
crowd and watched the working of her magic with
bitter, frowning eyes.

Fall was sweet upon the rangeland. Cool winds
blew over it, high blue skies were cupped above it,
and the sweeping levels were no longer green.

HOME TO THE FIELDS OP PARADISE 251

At Befngio where the walled-in garden was mel-
low with late lights Father Hillaird stood in the
ever-open gate and watched two figures going, away
into the northwest where the sunset was painting
all the brown reaches with a million brilliant
shades.

They were a man and a woman and they rode two
splendid horses, red as the sunset, proud creatures
that stepped with the same wide grace, their regal
heads high on their arching necks, their long tails
flowing — The Comet and The Meteor, though he
would never be anything but Redstar the Eang to
the girl who loved him, pacing home to Paradise
together.

The figures in the saddles, riding slowly with
hands clasped and swinging between them, with
their faces turned to each other in that mystic won-
^ der of perfect love, were Don and Val Velantrie,
fresh from the padre's ministrations at the altar
of the Church. On Father Hillair^ a great peace
had settled down, a splendid joy shone in his tender
face and he raised his hand and made the sign of
blessing above them, though thqr were so far
away.

A month had passed since that one great night.
The winter would soon be closing down — ^with its
loneliness and its memories.

This had had great weight, this thought of the
girl in the tragedy-haunted house, in bringing Vel-
antrie to the present moment.

252 VAL OF PARADISE

« I can't, Val," he had said at first bitterly, « how
can I come to Paradise? "

" How can yon not? " she had asked simply, " I
need yon. All Paradise will need you — ^and Par-
adise owes yon much," she had finished with a
tremor of her lips.

So he had laid aside what thought he might have
had of a new world, a different beginning, n This
was her home and her country. Here were her mem-
ories — and her graves. Therefore, if she wanted
him — here — ^why — what was there under the
shining canopy that she could have asked of him in
vain?

So now, at the end of a gorgeous day they rode
together into the autumn sunset, up along the wide
levels — ^looked at Mesa Grande towering toward the
west — and came at last to the patio where the dusky
women stood behind the riders to give them greet-
ing.

All were there — ^Fanita, old Juana, Miguel and
Arias and Felidta — all save that slim youth, Jos^.
A month ago, on the heels of the great night, Tom
Briston had dropped a heavy hand suddenly on
Josh's shoulder and whirled him to face his accus-
ing eyes.

" Now where," he had said hardly, ** did you have
th' Bedstar hid? " And the vaquero, startled out
of his usual calm, had answered helplessly, '^ In
the Blind Trail Hills, sefior^at the SeSor Boss's
orders."

^Like I thought. Well — ^Paradise won't need

HOME TO THE FIELDS OF PARADISE 253

you any more," the foreman had told him pointedly^
and Josd had gone with the dawn.

Perly, Siflf, Rosy and Dirk stood now and
watched with somewhat hostile eyes their Val come
home to them belonging with all loving heart to the
quiet man who rode beside her.

It was Briston, the foreman, who stood forth to
greet them first with a warm, close clasp, almost as
friendly for the one as for the other.

Always he was the perfect friend — and if he
knew what he had meant that day beyond the sim-
ple words, ^^ th' good man is th' one who can deal
squarely by his fellows • . . who can love one
woman either rewarded or unrewarded . . . who
can sacrifice," he gave no sign as he held Vdan-
trie's hand.

But Val, smiling down upon him in her quiet
joy, knew that he would be Velantrie's strongest
staff in a somewhat trying place and loved him
better for it. Then she swung off Redstar and saw
him trot away beside his double.

To Velantrie she turned those long dark eyes,
shining with the light that would bum for him
alone so long as life lasted.

" You have come back, Don," she whispered, " as
I said you would — always — ^to the Church door and
tome!"

" To stay," answered Vdantrie, " sometime of the
Border," as he bent and kissed her softly.

THB END

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